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ENGLAND  IN   1685 

BEING  CHAPTER  III  OF 

THE  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 


BY 


THOMAS  BABINGTON  MACAULAY 


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Edited 
With  Notes  and  an  Introduction 

BY 

ARLO  BATES 


GINN  AND  COMPANY 

BOSTON     •     NEW  YORK     •     CHICAGO     •     LONDON 
ATLANTA     •     DALLAS     •     COLUMBUS     ■     SAN  FRANCISCO 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


Copyright,  1897,  1905 
By  GINN  AND  COMPANY 


ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 


318.8 


Clie  gtftengum  3greg< 

GINN  AND  COMPANY  •  PRO- 
PRIETORS •  BOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


®uBt^/l'f^l^3f 


PREFATORY   NOTE. 

Both  for  its  historical  worth  and  as  an  introduction  to  the 
style  of  Lord  Macaulay  the  portion  of  the  History  which  is 
given  in  the  following  pages  is  of  much  educational  value.  It 
is  seldom  possible  to  detach  from  a  work  so  vivid  a  picture  of 
a  period,  and  to  find  in  the  fragment  so  much  the  appearance 
of  completeness ;  but  while  it  holds  its  place  perfectly  in  the 
History,  this  chapter  might  have  been  written  as  an  essay,  and 
may  be  read  without  any  feeling  of  its  being  either  unfinished 
or  detached. 


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INTRODUCTION. 


I. 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay  was  born  at  Rothley  Temple, 
Leicestershire,  England,  on  October  25,  1800.  He  came  of 
stout  old  Scotch  Presbyterian  stock  on  his  father's  side,  and 
on  his  mother's  of  Quaker  blood.  His  mother  was  a  woman 
of  strong  character  and  individuality,  who,  as  the  boy  developed 
a  precocity  really  amazing,  had  at  once  the  perception  to 
appreciate  his  unusual  gifts  and  the  good  judgment  not  to 
spoil  him.  When  hardly  more  than  an  infant  he  showed  a 
remarkable  power  of  writing,  producing  prose  and  verse  with 
almost  equal  facility ;  but  while  wonderingly  proud,  the  wise 
mother  had  the  self-control  and  sense  never  to  let  him  see  that 
she  regarded  his  youthful  efiforts,  as  she  wrote  to  a  friend,  "as 
anything  more  than  a  schoolboy's  amusement."  To  her  ten- 
derness, her  firmness,  and  her  wisdom,  Macaulay  owed  much ; 
and  he  always  regarded  her  with  the  warmest  affection  and 
admiration. 

After  four  years  at  an  excellent  private  boarding  school, 
Macaulay  entered  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  where  he  was 
graduated  in  1822.  Two  years  later  he  took  his  degree  of 
M.A.,  and  was  elected  to  a  fellowship.  During  all  these  years  his 
reading  was  enormous,  especially  in  the  line  of  poetry,  fiction, 
and  essays ;  he  exercised  himself  constantly  at  the  debating 
clubs  then  so  much  in  fashion ;  and  he  took  a  keen  delight  in 
following  the  tangled  threads  of  the  confused  and  confusing 
politics  of  the  day.    In  connection  with  the  last,  the  young 


vi  INTRODUCTION. 

man  showed  that  poise  and  self-command  which  distinguished 
him  through  Ufe.    One  biographer  says  of  this  period  : 

A  young  man  of  strong  passions  would,  inevitably,  have  taken 
an  extreme  side  —  either  for  reaction  or  reform.  Civil  society 
seemed  threatened  by  the  anarchists  ;  civil  liberty  seemed  equally 
threatened  by  the  Government.  .  .  .  Macaulay  took  his  stand,  with 
the  premature  prudence  and  wisdom  of  a  veteran,  on  the  judicious 
compromise  of  sound  Whig  principles.  He  was  zealous  for  reform, 
but  never  touched  by  a  breath  of  revolutionary  fervor. 

He  had  by  this  time  begun  to  be  known  as  a  promising 
contributor  to  the  magazines,  chiefly  to  Knight's  Quarterly 
Magazine,  and  among  his  early  pieces  the  two  poems,  The 
Battle  of  Ivry  and  The  Battle  of  Naseby,  are  still  read.  His 
work  was  undoubtedly  stimulated  and  his  mind  was  certainly 
developed  by  the  companionship  of  the  brilliant  young  men 
with  whom  at  Cambridge  he  was  in  constant  association.  From 
them  he  received  the  sympathy  which  was  denied  him  by  his 
father,  who,  always  sternly  Puritan,  became  more  and  more 
strenuous  in  his  creed,  and  so  completely  occupied  with  efforts 
to  promote  the  abolition  of  slavery  that  he  neglected  his  busi- 
ness until  he  came  to  actual  bankruptcy.  Macaulay  and  his 
brother  Henry  assumed  the  liabihties  their  father  had  incurred, 
and  for  years  practically  supported  the  family.  Morison  says 
of  him  in  this  connection  : 

Against  Macaulay  the  author  severe  things,  and  as  just  as 
severe,  may  be  said ;  but  as  to  his  conduct  in  his  own  home  —  as 
a  son,  as  a  brother,  and  an  uncle  —  it  is  only  the  barest  justice  to 
say  that  he  appears  to  have  touched  the  farthest  verge  of  human 
virtue,  sweetness,  and  generosity. 

He  gave  up  cheerfully  the  prospect  of  the  fortune  which  he 
had  expected  from  his  father,  and  set  himself  to  study  for  the 
bar,  to  which  he  was  admitted  in  1826.  He  had  no  inclination 
for   the   law,  however,  and  soon  abandoned  it  for  literature. 


INTRODUCTION.  vii 

He  had  received  from  Jeffries  an  invitation  to  write  for  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  and  in  August,  1825,  he  contributed  to 
that  magazine  his  essay  on  Milton.  Inferior  as  is  this  among 
the  essays  of  Macaulay,  crude  and  dogmatic  as  it  appears  when 
compared  with  his  riper  work,  it  at  once  attracted  wide  atten- 
tion, and  won  for  the  young  author  praise  so  warm  that  he  from 
that  minute  became  a  marked  man. 

It  was  still  the  fashion  to  help  on  promising  young  men  of 
literary  possibilities  with  small  Civil  Service  appointments, 
perhaps  quite  as  much  in  the  hope  that  their  pens  might  be 
politically  useful  as  from  any  disinterested  admiration  for 
letters,  and  in  1829  Macaulay  was  by  Lord  Lyndhurst  made  a 
Commissioner  in  Bankruptcy.  Two  years  later  he  was  sent  to 
Parhament  to  represent  the  pocket  borough  of  Calne.  The 
seat  was  in  the  gift  of  Lord  Lansdowne,  who,  a  stranger,  gave 
it  to  the  young  essayist  in  admiration  of  his  articles  on  Mill. 
His  first  speech  in  Parliament  proved  that  Macaulay  had 
remarkable  oratorical  gifts,  and  he  was  sent  for  by  the  Speaker, 
who  told  him  *'  that  in  all  his  prolonged  experience  he  had 
never  seen  the  House  in  such  a  state  of  excitement."  His 
enormous  reading,  his  prodigious  memory,  his  acuteness  of 
mind,  his  power  of  clear  statement,  and  the  natural  gifts  as  a 
speaker  which  he  had  developed  in  the  debating  societies  of 
Cambridge  united  to  produce  a  wonderful  impression. 

For  four,  years  Macaulay  was  in  Parliament,  working  with 
amazing  energy,  and  with  rapidly  increasing  fame.  He  con- 
tributed during  this  time  to  the  Edinburgh  Review  more  than 
a  dozen  essays,  written  in  intervals  stolen  from  the  time  de- 
manded by  his  public  work.  He  supported  a  bill  to  reform  the 
bankruptcy  laws  which  did  away  with  his  own  office,  and  as  at 
about  this  time  his  Cambridge  fellowship  also  expired  he  was  for 
a  brief  period  so  poor  that  he  was  forced  to  sell  the  gold  medals 
which  he  had  won  at  the  university.  He  was  soon  appointed, 
however,  to  the  Board  of  Control,  with  a  comfortable  salary. 


viii  INTRODUCTION. 

The  place  which  Macaulay  held  in  the  political  and  in  the 
social  world  of  London  was  by  this  time  most  brilliant  and 
enviable.  As  an  orator,  as  a  man  of  affairs,  and  as  a  literary 
and  social  lion,  he  was  equally  conspicuous.  He  had  the  satis- 
faction of  knowing  that  the  announcement  that  he  was  to 
speak  was,  in  the  phrase  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  a  summons  like 
a  trumpet-call  to  fill  the  benches,"  He  recognized  clearly, 
however,  that  he  could  not  under  existing  conditions  give  him- 
self up  to  any  important  literary  work,  and  the  design  of  his 
history  was  already  in  his  mind.  He  therefore  accepted  in 
1834  an  appointment  as  legal  adviser  to  the  Supreme  Council 
of  India,  and  for  four  years  of  exile  devoted  himself  to  the 
onerous  duties  of  that  position  and  to  the  saving  up  of  a 
modest  competence  which  would  allow  him  on  his  return  to 
devote  himself  to  his  chosen  work. 

In  India  the  record  of  Macaulay  was  notable  both  for  the 
enormous  amount  of  work  which  he  accomplished  and  for 
the  quality  of  that  work.  He  was  not  only  a  Member  of 
the  Council,  but  chairman  of  two  committees  of  the  highest 
importance,  —  the  Committee  of  Public  Instruction  and  that 
which  drew  up  a  new  Penal  Code.  His  work  on  the  Penal  Code 
was  especially  valuable,  and  remains,  in  the  opinion  of  one 
biographer,  "one  of  his  most  durable  titles  to  fame."  Certain 
reforms  which  he  was  able  to  effect  were  against  the  interests 
of  some  of  the  English  capitalists  at  that  time  operating  in 
India,  and  Macaulay  was  attacked  by  them  and  by  the  journals 
in  their  pay.  It  is  to  his  honor  that  notwithstanding  the 
extreme  bitterness  of  these  attacks  he  was  throughout  the 
unswerving  supporter  of  the  freedom  of  the  press. 

Macaulay  returned  to  England  in  1838,  and  in  the  autumn 
of  the  same  year  made  his  first  visit  to  Italy.  He  kept  a 
journal  during  this  trip,  and  it  shows  more  warmth  and 
enthusiasm  than  almost  anything  which  his  life  has  left  on 
record.    The  associations   both  of   classic  and  of  mediaeval 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

times  were  to  him  thoroughly  familiar  from  his  enormous 
reading  and  astonishing  memory,  and  it  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that  he  was  more  deeply  moved  by  the  rich  suggestions 
of  Rome  than  by  any  purely  personal  feeling  which  came  into 
his  life. 

The  next  spring  found  him  again  in  England,  and  once 
more  in  Parliament.  He  regretted  what  seemed  to  him  the 
political  necessity  of  taking  office.  "  I  pine  for  liberty  and  ease," 
he  wrote,  "and  freedom  of  speech  and  freedom  of  pen."  He 
was  loyal  to  the  Whig  party,  however,  and  supported  its  failing 
cause.  He  was  made  Secretary  of  War  in  1839,  and  secured 
personal  triumphs,  although  neither  he  nor  any  other  man  could 
prevent  the  fall  of  Lord  Melbourne's  government  in  1841.  This 
brought  to  Macaulay  the  freedom  for  which  he  longed.  Although 
he  was  reelected  as  member  for  Edinburgh,  he  found  himself 
relieved  from  the  pressure  of  work,  his  family  and  himself 
comfortably  provided  for,  so  that  he  was  not  forced  to  write 
for  money,  and  had  leisure  sufficient  to  allow  him  to  give  his 
most  serious  efforts  to  literature.  "  If  I  had  to  choose  a  lot 
from  all  that  there  are  in  human  life,"  he  wrote  at  this  time  to 
the  editor  of  the  Ediiiburgh  Review,  "  I  am  not  sure  that  I 
should  prefer  any  to  that  which  has  fallen  to  me." 

In  1842  Macaulay  published  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome,  and 
the  book  was  enormously  popular.  Professor  Wilson  said  of 
this  verse  what  is  perhaps  the  best  that  could  be  said  : 

A  cut-and-thrust  style,  without  any  flourish.  Scott's  style  when 
his  blood  is  up,  and  the  first  words  come  like  a  vanguard  impatient 
for  battle. 

Certainly  if  the  reputation  of  Macaulay  had  rested  only  on  his 
verse,  he  would  scarcely  have  held  a  high  place ;  yet  the  Lays 
are  sound,  straightforward,  and  wholesome.  If  they  do  not 
possess  great  poetic  merit,  they  are  at  least  excellent  rhetoric ; 
they  have  a  directness  and  simplicity  which  is  always  effective. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

The  great  literary  work  of  Macaulay's  life,  however,  was 
neither  the  Lays  nor  the  Essays,  but  the  History,  of  which  the 
first  two  volumes  were  published  in  1848.  He  had  determined 
to  make  history  as  attractive  as  fiction,  and  he  succeeded 
abundantly.  Edition  after  edition  was  called  for,  and  the 
author  told  with  amusement  of  seeing  on  a  placard  in  the 
window  of  a  Fleet  street  bookseller:  "Only  ^2  2s.  Hume's 
History  of  England,  in  8  vols.  Highly  valuable  as  an  intro- 
duction to  Macaulay."  Many  were  indignant  at  the  way  in 
which  church  matters  were  treated,  and  the  Quakers  sent  to 
Macaulay  a  delegation  to  remonstrate  against  the  manner  in 
which  he  had  dealt  with  the  character  of  William  Penn. 
Macaulay  argued  the  delegation  down ;  but  it  has  been  proved 
that  he  was  wrong  and  they  entirely  in  the  right.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  work  was  received  with  wonderful  applause. 
Macaulay  was  in  the  following  year  honored  by  being  made 
Lord  Rector  of  the  University  of  Glasgow,  and  if  he  had  to 
endure  some  sharp  criticism,  he  was  solaced  with  warm  praise 
and  the  knowledge  that  no  English  historian  except  Gibbon 
had  been  so  widely  read. 

Work  on  the  History,  with  some  biographies  contributed  to 
the  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  cover  the  remaining  ten  years 
of  Macaulay's  life.  The  third  and  fourth  volumes  of  the  former 
appeared  in  1855,  and  the  fifth  volume  posthumously.  He 
was  created  Baron  Macaulay  of  Rothley  in  1857,  and  died 
December  28,  1859. 

II. 

The  character  of  Lord  Macaulay  is  neither  intricate  nor 
elusive,  except  in  so  far  as  all  humanity  may  be  said  to  be 
difficult  to  understand.  He  was  upright,  honorable,  kindly, 
self-controlled,  and  practical.  His  generosity,  his  love  for 
children,  and  his  respectful  bearing  toward  his  rather  trying 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

father,  the  manliness  with  which  in  ParUament  he  insisted 
upon  preserving  the  integrity  of  his  personal  convictions  even 
at  the  sacrifice  of  his  political  interests,  —  all  entitle  him  to 
esteem  and  admiration. 

In  society  he  was  noted  for  his  wonderful  capacity,  and,  it 
may  be  added,  his  no  less  wonderful  pertinacity,  in  talk.  His 
abundant  store  of  knowledge,  his  facility  in  embodying  this  in 
words,  and  the  activity  of  his  mind  gave  to  his  talk  amazing 
richness ;  but  he  was  unfortunately  given  to  the  habit  of  over- 
riding conversation,  and  of  turning  the  talk  into  a  monologue. 
The  witty  Sydney  Smith,  whimsically  complaining  that  Macau- 
lay  never  gave  him  a  chance  to  get  in  a  word,  once  said  to 
him,  "When  I'm  gone,  you'll  be  sorry  that  you  never  heard 
me  speak."  He  had,  moreover,  a  somewhat  autocratic  way  of 
putting  forward  his  opinions  that  made  William  Windam 
declare  satirically  that  he  wished  he  could  ever  be  "as  cocksure 
of  anything  as  Macaulay  is  of  everything."  After  an  illness, 
when  Macaulay  was  too  weak  to  keep  up  to  his  usual  level  of 
talk,  Sydney  Smith  said,  "  Now  he  has  occasional  flashes  of 
silence  that  make  his  conversation  perfectly  dehghtful." 

The  personal  appearance  of  the  historian  in  1856  is  pleas- 
antly described  by  Hawthorne  in  the  English  Notebooks.  His 
first  sight  of  Macaulay  was  at  a  breakfast. 

He  was  a  man  of  large  presence,  —  a  portly  personage,  gray- 
haired,  but  scarcely  yet  aged ;  and  his  face  had  a  remarkable 
intelligence,  not  vivid  nor  sparkling,  but  conjoined  with  great 
quietude,  —  and  if  it  gleamed  or  brightened  at  one  time  more  than 
another,  it  was  like  the  sheen  over  a  broad  surface  of  sea.  There 
was  a  somewhat  careless  self-possession,  large  and  broad  enough 
to  be  called  dignity ;  and  the  more  I  looked  at  him,  the  more  I 
knew  he  was  a  distinguished  person,  and  wondered  who. 

Lord  Macaulay's  wonderful  memory  was  the  astonishment 
of  his  friends,  and  was  perhaps  the   most  remarkable   ever 


xii  IN  TROD  UC  TION. 

possessed  by  a  man  of  letters.  As  a  boy  he  was  able  to  repeat 
almost  the  whole  of  Ths  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  after  a  sin- 
gle reading ;  when  he  was  fifty-eight  years  old  he  learned  the 
four  hundred  lines  of  the  last  act  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice 
in  a  couple  of  hours ;  and  he  declared  that  if  all  copies  of 
Paradise  Lost  and  Pilgrim's  Progress  were  to  vanish  from  the 
earth,  he  could  replace  them  from  memory.  Almost  every 
writer  who  has  given  reminiscences  of  him  furnishes  instances 
of  this  power,  which  was  the  more  remarkable  as  it  seems  to 
have  been  a  direct  gift  of  nature  rather  than  a  deliberate 
acquirement. 

His  most  marked  intellectual  habit  was  his  practice  of 
unstinted  and  omnivorous  reading.  He  may  indeed  be  said  to 
have  carried  this  to  great  excess,  and  to  have  read  inordinately. 
The  Hsts  which  he  himself  gives  of  the  books,  ancient  and 
modern,  which  he  went  through  are  amazing,  and  confessedly 
they  omit  the  numerous  light  works,  —  often  fiction  of  no  lit- 
erary merit  whatever,  —  of  which  he  devoured  quantities. 
Reading  with  Macaulay  was  as  near  a  disease  as  such  a  habit 
can  come,  and  one  of  his  biographers^  is  hardly  too  severe 
when  he  writes  : 

His  acute  intellect  and  nimble  fancy  are  not  paired  with  an 
emotional  endowment  of  corresponding  weight  and  volume.  His 
endless  and  aimless  reading  was  the  effect,  not  the  cause,  of  this 
disposition.  .  .  .  This  incessant  reading  was  directed  by  no  aim, 
to  no  purpose  —  was  prompted  by  no  idea  on  which  he  wished  to 
throw  light,  no  thoughtful  conception  which  needed  to  be  verified 
and  tested.  Macaulay's  omnivorous  reading  is  often  referred  to  as 
if  it  were  a  title  to  honor  ;  it  was  far  more  of  the  nature  of  a 
defect.  .  .  .  How  dry  the  inward  springs  of  meditation  must  have 
been  to  allow  of  such  an  employment  of  time! 

1  J.  Cotter  Morison,  in  English  Men  of  Letters  series. 


INTRO  D  UC  TION. 


-III. 


In  the  style  of  Macaulay  largely  lies  the  secret  of  his  suc- 
cess. When  he  sent  the  essay  on  Milton  to  the  Edi7ibu7-gh 
Review  Jeffries  wrote  to  him,  "  The  more  I  think,  the  less  I 
can  conceive  where  you  picked  up  that  style."  Consciously 
or  unconsciously,  he  had  picked  it  up  largely  in  the  debating 
societies  at  Cambridge,  where  a  natural  bent  of  mind  had  been 
developed  and  trained.  By  nature  he  was  gifted  with  an  apti- 
tude for  oratory,  and  this  was  so  increased  by  frequent  and 
congenial  use  throughout  his  whole  career  at  the  university 
that  it  came  to  a  rare  perfection. 

Macaulay's  style  is  essentially  that  of  the  orator.  It  is 
addressed  to  an  audience  which  is  to  be  reached  rather  by 
superficial  form  than  by  finer  graces.  The  rolling,  well-rounded 
periods,  the  repetitions  which  make  it  easy  for  the  hearer  to 
follow  spoken  discourse,  the  simplicity  and  directness  of  state- 
ment, the  frequent  introduction  of  striking  allusions  or  illus- 
trations which  keep  the  attention  alert,  —  all  these  qualities  are 
essentially  oratorical.  They  are  all  to  be  found  admirably 
employed  in  the  published  speeches  of  Macaulay ;  and  the 
student  of  style  may  make  an  interesting  and  profitable  com- 
parison between  the  orations  delivered  in  Parliament  and  what 
may  almost  be  called  the  orations  published  as  essays.  The 
method  is  practically  the  same  in  both  ;  and  in  both  will  be 
found  practically  the  same  defects  and  the  same  virtues. 

The  defects  of  an  oratorical  style  are  that  it  is  likely  to  be 
limited  to  those  effects  which  may  be  produced  instantly ;  that 
it  is  constantly  likely  to  sacrifice  lasting  to  momentary  impres- 
sions ;  that  it  is  apt  to  be  confined  to  ideas  and  sentiments 
which  may  be  conveyed  directly,  to  the  exclusion  of  those 
which  result  from  reflection  and  suggestion.  The  orator  is 
constantly  exposed  to  the  danger  of  dealing  only  with  thoughts 
and  emotions  superficial  and  purely  of  the  moment. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

The  merits  of  this  method  are  no  less  marked  than  its 
defects.  The  power  of  arresting  attention,  of  awakening 
interest,  of  stimulating  minds  not  easily  accessible  to  any  form 
of  literature,  is  conspicuous  on  every  page  Macaulay  ever  wrote. 
The  orator  depends  much  upon  cadence  and  rhythm.  He 
makes  of  his  words  an  instrument  which  plays  a  music  not 
subtle  or  delicate,  it  is  true,  but  the  more  appeahng  to  the 
popular  ear  from  its  very  lack  of  over-refinement.  In  the  street 
or  in  the  market  place  a  military  band  is  more  effective  than 
a  string  quartette  ;  and  Macaulay  chose  to  be  the  band.  Early 
in  his  literary  career  he  said  frankly  that  he  put  "  tinsel "  into 
his  articles  to  please  the  general  public ;  and  it  is  at  least  true 
that  the  general  public  were  fascinated.  It  is  impossible  not 
to  find  in  these  admirably  constructed  sentences,  in  these 
swinging  sonorous  periods,  an  exhilaration  which  stirs  the 
blood  and  arouses  the  mind.  A  dull  writer  is  almost  an 
immoral  one,  since  he  is  encouraging  an  indifference  or  a 
repugnance  to  literature ;  and  on  the  other  hand  we  owe  no 
small  debt  to  one  who,  like  Macaulay,  fosters  the  love  of  read- 
ing, awakens  an  interest  in  important  historical  affairs,  and 
calls  attention  to  intellectual  problems. 

The  matter  of  any  writer  is  closely  connected  with  the 
manner  in  which  it  is  presented,  and  the  material  with  which 
Macaulay  deals  might  be  criticised  in  terms  much  the  same  as 
those  in  which  his  style  has  been  commented  upon.  Edmund 
Gosse  remarks  justly : 

English  literature  has  seen  no  great  writer  more  unspiritual  than 
Macaulay,  more  unimaginative,  more  demurely  satisfied  with  the 
phenomenal  aspect  of  life  ....  Satisfied  with  surfaces,  he  observed 
them  with  extraordinary  liveliness.  He  preferred  to  be  entertain- 
ing, instructive,  even  exhaustive,  on  almost  every  legitimate  subject 
of  human  thought;  but  the  one  thing  he  never  realizes  is  to  be 
suggestive.  What  he  knows  he  tells  in  a  clear,  positive  way  ;  and 
he  knows  so  much  that  often,  especially  in  youth,  we  desire  no 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

other  guide  ;  but  he  is  without  vision  of  unseen  things  ;  he  has 
no  message  to  the  heart  ;  the  waters  of  the  soul  are  never  trou- 
bled by  his  copious  and  admirable  flow  of  information. 

This  is,  however,  not  quite  the  whole  truth.  Macaulay  had,  it 
is  true,  more  agility  of  mind  than  imagination,  and  he  seldom 
went  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  matter-of-fact;  but  he  so 
arranged  his  material,  he  so  eloquently  presented  the  condi- 
tions of  the  past,  as  to  reach  a  great  audience  not  to  be 
aroused  or  held  by  any  other  means.  Readers  not  able  to 
follow  the  more  lofty  flights  of  more  imaginative  writers  are 
delighted  and  instructed  by  him.  A  body  of  workmen  sent  to 
him  a  vote  of  thanks  for  having  produced  a  history  so  clearly 
written  that  persons  of  their  class  could  understand  and  enjoy 
it ;  and  by  implication  this  explains  Macaulay's  strongest  hold 
upon  his  public.  In  thought  and  in  style  he  is  above  every- 
thing else  lucid  and  easy  to  follow.  He  keeps  the  attention 
because  he  never  confuses  it,  never  fatigues  it,  never  fails  to 
stimulate  it. 

IV. 

The  attitude  of  Macaulay  toward  history  he  has  himself 
stated  with  admirable  clearness.  He  held  that  "  it  should 
invest  with  the  reality  of  flesh  and  blood  beings  whom  we  are 
too  much  inclined  to  consider  as  personified  qualities  in  an 
allegory;  call  up  our  ancestors  before  us  with  all  their  pecu- 
liarities of  language,  manners,  and  garb ;  show  us  their  houses, 
seat  us  at  their  tables,  rummage  their  old-fashioned  wardrobes, 
explain  the  uses  of  their  ponderous  furniture,"  In  other  words, 
he  held  that  history,  no  less  than  fiction,  should  be  a  lively 
and  vivid  picture  of  the  actual,  warm,  human  life  of  the  past. 
He  aimed  to  give  to  the  narrative  of  real  occurrences,  to  the 
portrayal  of  genuine  personages,  the  same  life  that  fiction 
bestows  on  the  events  and  characters  of  fancy.    His  wish  was 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

to  make  the  past,  so  far  as  is  possible,  vital  with  the  reality 
which  informs  the  life  of  the  present. 

His  manner  of  attempting  to  carry  out  this  really  noble  con- 
ception was  that  of  presenting  each  character,  each  state  of 
society,  with  the  utmost  detail  and  with  abundant  personal 
incident.  In  practice  such  a  method  is  less  admirable  than  it 
is  in  theory.  The  historian  necessarily  deals  with  periods  of 
time  so  great  that  the  detailed  account  of  each  personage,  of 
each  political  intrigue,  of  every  national  crisis,  is  apt  to  befog 
the  general  outlines.  The  reader  gets,  indeed,  a  clear  and 
vivid  impression  of  individual  statesmen,  or  of  separate  eras, 
but  is  less  Hkely  to  be  able  out  of  the  multiplicity  of  images 
to  gain  a  clear  conception  of  the  great  movements  of  history. 
The  very  richness  of  Macaulay's  method  tended  to  obscure 
the  sharpness  of  the  outline  of  the  whole.  The  slow  processes 
of  social  evolution,  the  development  of  political  ideals,  are  lost 
sight  of  in  the  closeness  with  which  the  attention  is  won  to 
regard  special  periods  and  marked  men. 

If  his  method  be  allowed,  however,  it  could  hardly  be  han- 
dled more  satisfactorily.  Morison  is  giving  to  the  historian  no 
more  than  his  due  when  he  says  warmly  : 

Historical  narrative  in  his  hands  is  something  vastly  more  com- 
plex and  involved  than  it  ever  was  before.  .  .  .  Beneath  the 
smooth  and  polished  surface  layer  under  layer  may  be  seen  of 
subordinate  narratives,  crossing  and  interlacing  each  other  like 
the  parts  in  the  score  of  an  oratorio.  And  this  complexity  results 
not  in  confusion  but  in  the  most  admirable  clearness  and  unity  of 
effect.  His  pages  are  not  only  pictorial,  they  are  dramatic.  Scene 
is  made  to  follow  scene  with  the  skill  of  an  accomplished  play- 
wright ;  and  each  has  been  planned  and  fashioned  with  a  view  to 
its  thoroughly  prepared  place  in  the  whole  piece.  .  .  .  Many 
writers  before  Macaulay  had  done  their  best  to  be  graphic  and 
picturesque,  but  none  ever  saw  that  the  scattered  fragments  of 
truth  could,  by  incessant  toil  directed  by  the  artistic  eye,  be  worked 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 

into  a  mosaic  which  for  color,  freedom,  and  finish  might  rival  the 
creations  of  fancy. 

The  defects  of  the  History,  however,  cannot  be  passed  over 
in  silence.  Whether  the  effort  to  make  his  account  of  other 
times  share  the  attractiveness  of  fiction  led  the  historian  peril- 
ously near  to  the  attitude  of  the  noveHst  who  feels  himself  at 
liberty  to  represent  his  characters  as  he  pleases,  or  whether  the 
oratorical  habit  of  feeling  that  the  effective  rounding  of  a 
period  is  almost  a  moral  necessity  betrayed  him  into  mis- 
statements, certain  it  is  that  Macaulay  did  now  and  again 
distort  fact  and  misrepresent  character.  The  extent  of  his 
inaccuracy  has  perhaps  been  exaggerated,  since  inaccuracy  is 
the  fault  which  is  least  likely  to  be  forgiven  to  a  historian  ;  but 
the  list  of  charges  which  might  be  made  out  is  still  sufficiently 
grave.  It  is  often  necessary  to  correct  his  statements,  as  it  is 
also  needful  to  gain  a  general  outline,  from  some  other  author; 
but  the  other  and  more  accurate  authors  will  almost  always  be 
most  strikingly  lacking  in  the  life  and  freshness  which  in  his 
pages  never  fail. 

The  selection  which  is  published  in  the  following  pages,  the 
third  chapter  of  the  first  volume  of  the  History,  is  a  striking 
example  of  Macaulay' s  power  of  handling  a  great  mass  of 
details  and  of  producing  from  them  a  result  which  is  most 
admirably  readable.  The  picture  of  life  in  England  in  the  late 
seventeenth  century  is  made  up  of  a  wonderfully  large  number 
of  details,  but  they  are  so  well  arranged,  one  statement  is  so 
linked  with  others,  all  are  so  completely  woven  together,  that 
the  attention  of  the  reader  is  held  closely  throughout,  and  the 
impression  produced  by  the  whole  has  the  freshness  of  an 
account  of  present  affairs  rather  than  the  formality  and  remote- 
ness which  generally  belong  to  such  a  summary.  The  reader 
feels  rather  that  he  is  learning  the  condition  of  some  country 
which  he  might  to-day  visit,  than  that  he  is  studying  of  things 
as  they  existed  centuries  ago. 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 

It  is  true  that  Macaulay  does  not  go  much  below  the  surface. 
He  does  not  concern  himself  with  the  causes  which  make  the 
country  into  which  he  takes  us  what  it  is ;  but  at  least  he  does 
take  us  there,  and  that  with  a  completeness  and  a  clearness 
which  other  historians  have  in  vain  tried  to  rival.  It  is  not  as  if 
we  were  mere  students,  it  is  as  if  by  some  magic  we  had  been 
transported  to  England  in  the  times  of  Charles  II,  and  were 
with  our  own  eyes  observing  the  particulars  which  the  historian 
has  accumulated  from  sources  so  numerous  and  so  diverse. 


ENGLAND  IN   1685. 


I  INTEND,  in  this  chapter,  to  give  a  description  of  the  state 
in  which  England  was  at  the  time  when  the  crown  passed 
from  Charles  the  Second  to  his  brother.^  Such  a  description, 
composed  from  scanty  and  dispersed  materials,  must  neces- 
sarily be  very  imperfect.  Yet  it  may  perhaps  correct  some  5 
false  notions  which  would  render  the  subsequent  narrative 
unintelligible  or  uninstructive. 

If  we  would  study  with  profit  the  history  of  our  ancestors, 
we  must  be  constantly  on  our  guard  against  that  delusion 
which  the  well-known  names  of  families,  places,  and  offices  10 
naturally  produce,  and  must  never  forget  that  the  country  of 
which  we  read  was  a  very  different  country  from  that  in 
which  we  live.     In  every  experimental   science  there  is  a 
tendency  towards  perfection.     In  every  human  being  there 
is  a  wish  to  ameliorate  his  own  condition.     These  two  prin-  15 
ciples  have  often  sufficed,  even  when  counteracted  by  great 
public  calamities  and  by  bad  institutions,  to  carry  civilization 
rapidly  forward.     No  ordinary  misfortune,  no  ordinary  mis- 
government,  will  do  so  much  to  make  a  nation  wretched,  as 
the  constant  progress  of  physical  knowledge  and  the  constant  20 
effort  of  every  man  to  better  himself  will  do  to  make  a  nation 
prosperous.     It  has  often  been  found  that  profuse  expendi- 
ture, heavy  taxation,  absurd  commercial  restrictions,  corrupt 
tribunals,  disastrous  wars,  seditions,  persecutions,  conflagra- 
tions, inundations,  have  not  been  able  to  destroy  capital  so  25 
fast  as  the  exertions  of  private  citizens  have  been  able  to   . 


2  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

create  it.  It  can  easily  be  proved  that,  in  our  own  land,  the 
national  wealth  has,  during  at  least  six  centuries,  been  almost 
uninterruptedly  increasing;  that  it  was  greater  under  the 
Tudors  than  under  the  Plantagenets ;  that  it  was  greater 
5  under  the  Stuarts  than  under  the  Tudors;^  that,  in  spite  of 
battles,  sieges,  and  confiscations,  it  was  greater  on  the  day 
of  the  Restoration  than  on  the  day  when  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment met ;  ^  that,  in  spite  of  maladministration,  of  extrava- 
gance, of  public  bankruptcy,  of  two  costly  and  unsuccessful 

10  wars,  of  the  pestilence,  and  of  the  fire,  it  was  greater  on  the 
day  of  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second  than  on  the  day  of 
his  restoration.  This  progress,  having  continued  during 
many  ages,  became  at  length,  about  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  portentously  rapid,  and  has  proceeded,  during 

IS  the  nineteenth,  with  accelerated  velocity.  In  consequence 
partly  of  our  geographical  and  partly  of  our  moral  position, 
we  have,  during  several  generations,  been  exempt  from  evils 
which  have  elsewhere  impeded  the  efforts  and  destroyed  the 
fruits  of  industry.     While  every  part  of  the  Continent,  from 

2o  Moscow  to  Lisbon,  has  been  the  theatre  of  bloody  and 
devastating  wars,  no  hostile  standard  has  been  seen  here  but 
as  a  trophy.  While  revolutions  have  taken  place  all  around 
us,  our  government  has  never  once  been  subverted  by  vio- 
lence.   During  a  hundred  years  there  has  been  in  our  island 

25  no  tumult  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  called  an  insurrec- 
tion. The  law  has  never  been  borne  down  either  by  popular 
fury  or  by  regal  tyranny.  Public  credit  has  been  held  sacred. 
The  administration  of  justice  has  been  pure.  Even  in  times 
which  might  by  Englishmen  be  justly  called  evil  times,  we 

30  have  enjoyed  what  almost  every  other  nation  in  the  world 
would  have  considered  as  an  ample  measure  of  civil  and 
religious  freedom.  Every  man  has  felt  entire  confidence  that 
the  state  would  protect  him  in  the  possession  of  what  had 
been  earned  by  his  diligence  and  hoarded  by  his  self-denial. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685,  3 

Under  the  benignant  influence  of  peace  and  liberty,  science 
has  flourished,  and  has  been  applied  to  practical  purposes 
on  a  scale  never  before  known.  The  consequence  is,  that  a 
change  to  which  the  history  of  the  old  world  furnishes  no 
parallel  has  taken  place  in  our  country.  Could  the  England  5 
of  1685  be,  by  some  magical  process,  set  before  our  eyes, 
we  should  not  know  one  landscape  in  a  hundred  or  one 
building  in  ten  thousand.  The  country  gentleman  would  not 
recognize  his  own  fields.  The  inhabitant  of  the  town  would 
not  recognize  his  own  street.  Everything  has  been  changed  10 
but  the  great  features  of  nature,  and  a  few  massive  and 
durable  works  of  human  art.  We  might  find  out  Snowdon 
and  Windermere,  the  Cheddar  Cliffs  and  Beachy  Head.  We 
might  find  out  here  and  there  a  Norman  minster,  or  a  castle 
which  witnessed  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  But,  with  such  rare  15 
exceptions,  everything  would  be  strange  to  us.  Many  thous- 
ands of  square  miles  which  are  now  rich  corn  land  and  meadow, 
intersected  by  green  hedgerows,  and  dotted  with  villages  and 
pleasant  country-seats,  would  appear  as  moors  overgrown  with 
furze,  or  fens  abandoned  to  wild  ducks.  We  should  see  20 
straggling  huts  built  of  wood  and  covered  with  thatch  where 
we  now  see  manufacturing  towns  and  seaports  renowned  to 
the  farthest  ends  of  the  world.  The  capital  itself  would 
shrink  to  dimensions  not  much  exceeding  those  of  its  present 
suburb  on  the  south  of  the  Thames.  Not  less  strange  to  us  25 
would  be  the  garb  and  manners  of  the  people,  the  furniture 
and  the  equipages,  the  interior  of  the  shops  and  dwellings. 
Such  a  change  in  the  state  of  a  nation  seems  to  be  at  least 
as  well  entitled  to  the  notice  of  an  historian  as  any  change 
of  the  dynasty  or  of  the  ministry.  30 

One  of  the  first  objects  of  an  inquirer  who  wishes  to  form 
a  correct  notion  of  the  state  of  a  community  at  a  given  time 
must  be  to  ascertain  of  how  many  persons  that  community 
then  consisted.     Unfortunately  the  population  of  England  in 


4  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

1685  cannot  be  ascertained  with  perfect  accuracy.  For  no 
great  state  had  then  adopted  the  wise  course  of  periodically 
numbering  the  people.  All  men  were  left  to  conjecture  for 
themselves;  and,  as  they  generally  conjectured  without  ex- 
5  amining  facts,  and  under  the  influence  of  strong  passions 
and  prejudices,  their  guesses  were  often  ludicrously  absurd. 
Even  intelligent  Londoners  ordinarily  talked  of  London  as 
containing  several  millions  of  souls.  It  was  confidently 
asserted  by  many  that,  during  the  thirty-five  years  which  had 

10  elapsed  between  the  accession  of  Charles  the  First  and  the 
Restoration,  the  population  of  the  city  had  increased  by  two 
millions.  Even  while  the  ravages  of  the  plague  and  fire^ 
were  recent,  it  was  the  fashion  to  say  that  the  capital  still 
had  a  million  and  a  half  of  inhabitants.     Some  persons,  dis- 

15  gusted  by  these  exaggerations,  ran  violently  into  the  opposite 
extreme.  Thus  Isaac  Vossius,  a  man  of  undoubted  parts 
and  learning,  strenuously  maintained  that  there  were  only 
two  millions  of  human  beings  in  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland  taken  together. 

20  We  are  not,  however,  left  without  the  means  of  correcting 
the  wild  blunders  into  which  some  minds  were  hurried  by 
national  vanity,  and  others  by  a  morbid  love  of  paradox. 
There  are  extant  three  computations  which  seem  to  be  enti- 
tled to  peculiar  attention.     They  are  entirely  independent  of 

25  each  other:  they  proceed  on  different  principles,  and  yet 
there  is  little  difference  in  the  results. 

One  of  these  computations  was  made  in  the  year  1696  by 
Gregory  King,  Lancaster  herald,  a  political  arithmetician  of 
great  acuteness  and  judgment.    The  basis  of  his  calculations 

30  was  the  number  of  houses  returned  in  1690  by  the  officers 
who  made  the  last  collection  of  the  hearth  money.  The  con- 
clusion at  which  he  arrived  was,  that  the  population  of  England 
was  nearly  five  millions  and  a  half. 

About  the  same  time  King  William  the  Third  was  desirous 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  S 

to  ascertain  the  comparative  strength  of  the  religious  sects 
into  which  the  community  was  divided.  An  inquiry  was 
instituted;  and  reports  were  laid  before  him  from  all  the 
dioceses  of  the  realm.  According  to  these  reports  the  num- 
ber of  his  English  subjects  must  have  been  about  five  million  5 
two  hundred  thousand.* 

Lastly,  in  our  own  days,  Mr.  Finlaison,  an  actuary^  of 
eminent  skill,  subjected  the  ancient  parochial  registers  to  all 
the  tests  which  the  modern  improvements  in  statistical  sci- 
ence enabled  him  to  apply.  His  opinion  was  that,  at  the  10 
close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  population  of  England 
was  a  little  under  five  million  two  hundred  thousand  souls. 

Of  these  three  estimates,  framed  without  concert  by  differ- 
ent persons  from  different  sets  of  materials,  the  highest, 
which  is  that  of  King,  does  not  exceed  the  lowest,  which  is  15 
that  of  Finlaison,  by  one-twelfth.  We  may,  therefore,  with 
confidence  pronounce  that  when  James  the  Second  reigned, 
England  contained  between  five  million  and  five  million  five 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  On  the  very  highest  suppo- 
sition she  then  had  less  than  one-third  of  her  present  popu-  20 
lation,  and  less  than  three  times  the  population  which  is  now 
collected  in  her  gigantic  capital. 

The  increase  of  the  people  has  been  great  in  every  part 
of  the  kingdom,  but  generally  much  greater  in  the  northern 
than  in  the  southern  shires.  In  truth  a  large  part  of  the  25 
country  beyond  Trent  was,  down  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
in  a  state  of  barbarism.  Physical  and  moral  causes  had 
concurred  to  prevent  civilization  from  spreading  to  that 
region.     The  air  was  inclement ;  the  soil  was  generally  such 

*  The  practice  of  reckoning  the  population  by  sects  was  long  fashion-  30 
able.     Gulliver  says  of  the  king  of  Brobdingnag,  "  He  laughed  at  my 
odd  arithmetic,  as  he  was  pleased  to  call  it,  in  reckoning  the  numbers  of 
our  people  by  a  computation  drawn  from  the  several  sects  among  us  in 
religion  and  politics." 


6  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

as  required  skillful  and  industrious  cultivation  ;  and  there 
could  be  little  skill  or  industry  in  a  tract  which  was  often 
the  theatre  of  war,  and  which,  even  when  there  was  nominal 
peace,    was    constantly    desolated    by   bands    of    Scottish 

5  marauders.  Before  the  union  of  the  two  British  crowns, 
and  long  after  that  union,  there  was  as  great  a  difference 
between  Middlesex  and  Northumberland  as  there  now  is 
between  Massachusetts  and  the  settlements  of  those  squat- 
ters who,  far  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi,  administer  a 

10  rude  justice  with  the  rifle  and  the  dagger.*'  In  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  the  traces  left  by  ages  of  slaughter  and 
pillage  were  still  distinctly  perceptible,  many  miles  south  of 
the  Tweed,  in  the  face  of  the  country  and  in  the  lawless 
manners  of  the  people.     There  was  still  a  large  class  of 

15  moss-troopers,^  whose  calling  was  to  plunder  dwellings  and 
to  drive  away  whole  herds  of  cattle.  It  was  found  necessary, 
soon  after  the  Restoration,  to  enact  laws  of  great  severity 
for  the  prevention  of  these  outrages.  The  magistrates  of 
Northumberland  and  Cumberland  were  authorized  to  raise 

20  bands  of  armed  men  for  the  defence  of  property  and  order ; 
and  provision  was  made  for  meeting  the  expense  of  these 
levies  by  local  taxation.  The  parishes  were  required  to  keep 
bloodhounds  for  the  purpose  of  hunting  the  freebooters. 
Many  old  men  who  were  living  in  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 

25  teenth  century  could  well  remember  the  time  when  those 
ferocious  dogs  were  common.  Yet,  even  with  such  auxiliaries, 
it  was  often  found  impossible  to  track  the  robbers  to  their 
retreats  among  the  hills  and  morasses.  For  the  geography 
of  that  wild  country  was   very  imperfectly  known.     Even 

30  after  the  accession  of  George  the  Third,^  the  path  over  the 
fells  from  Borrowdale  to  Ravenglas  was  still  a  secret  care- 
fully kept  by  the  dalesmen,  some  of  whom  had  probably  in 
their  youth  escaped  from  the  pursuit  of  justice  by  that  road. 
The  seats  of  the  gentry  and   the  larger  farmhouses  were 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  7 

fortified.  Oxen  were  penned  at  night  beneath  the  over- 
hanging battlements  of  the  residence,  which  was  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Peel.  The  inmates  slept  with  arms  at  their 
sides.  Huge  stones  and  boiling  water  were  in  readiness  to 
crush  and  scald  the  plunderer  who  might  venture  to  assail  5 
the  little  garrison.  No  traveler  ventured  into  that  country 
without  making  his  will.  The  judges  on  circuit,  with  the 
whole  body  of  barristers,  attorneys,  clerks,  and  serving  men, 
rode  on  horseback  from  Newcastle  to  Carlisle,  armed  and 
escorted  by  a  strong  guard  under  the  command  of  the  10 
sheriffs.  It  was  necessary  to  carry  provisions,  for  the  coun- 
try was  a  wilderness  which  afforded  no  supplies.  The  spot 
where  the  cavalcade  halted  to  dine,  under  an  immense  oak, 
is  not  yet  forgotten.  The  irregular  vigor  with  which  crimi- 
nal justice  was  administered  shocked  observers  whose  life  15 
had  been  passed  in  more  tranquil  districts.  Juries,  animated 
by  hatred  and  by  a  sense  of  common  danger,  convicted 
house-breakers  and  cattle-stealers  with  the  promptitude  of  a 
court-martial  in  a  mutiny ;  and  the  convicts  were  hurried  by 
scores  to  the  gallows.  Within  the  memory  of  some  who  are  20 
still  living,  the  sportsman  who  wandered  in  pursuit  of  game 
to  the  sources  of  the  Tyne,  found  the  heaths  round  Keeldar 
Castle  peopled  by  a  race  scarcely  less  savage  than  the  Indians 
of  California,  and  heard  with  surprise  the  half-naked  women 
chanting  a  wild  measure,  while  the  men  with  brandished  25 
dirks  danced  a  war  dance.® 

Slowly  and  with  difficulty  peace  was  established  on  the 
border.  In  the  train  of  peace  came  industry  and  all  the  arts 
of  life.  Meanwhile  it  was  discovered  that  the  regions  north 
of  the  Trent  possessed  in  their  coal  beds  a  source  of  wealth  30 
far  more  precious  than  the  gold  mines  of  Peru.  It  was 
found  that  in  the  neighborhood  of  these  beds  almost  every 
manufacture  might  be  most  profitably  carried  on.  A  con- 
stant   stream    of    emigrants   began    to   roll    northward.     It 


8  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

appeared,  by  the  returns  of  1841,  that  the  ancient  archiepis- 
copal  province  of  York  contained  two-sevenths  of  the  popu- 
lation of  England.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  that 
province  was  believed  to  contain  only  one-seventh  of  the 
5  population.  In  Lancashire,  the  number  of  inhabitants 
appears  to  have  increased  ninefold,  while  in  Norfolk, 
Suffolk,  and  Northamptonshire,  it  has  hardly  doubled.* 

Of  the  taxation  we  can  speak  with  more  confidence  and 
precision  than  of  the  population.     The  revenue  of  England, 

10  under  Charles  the  Second,  was  small,  when  compared  with 
the  resources  which  she  even  then  possessed,  or  with  the 
sums  which  were  raised  by  the  governments  of  the  neighbor- 
ing countries.  It  was  little  more  than  three-fourths  of  the 
revenue  of  the  United  Provinces,  and  was  hardly  one-fifth  of 

15  the  revenue  of  France, 

The  most  important  head  of  receipt  was  the  excise,  which, 
in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles,  produced  five  hun- 
dred and  eighty-five  thousand  pounds,  clear  of  all  deductions. 
The  net  proceeds  of  the  customs  amounted  in  the  same  year 

20  to  five  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  pounds.  These  burdens 
did  not  lie  very  heavy  on  the  nation.  The  tax  on  chimneys,^" 
though  less  productive,  raised  far  louder  murmurs.  The 
discontent  excited  by  direct  imposts  is,  indeed,  almost  always 
out  of  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  money  which  they  bring 

25  into  the  Exchequer;  and  the  tax  on  chimneys  was,  even 
among  direct  imposts,  peculiarly  odious ;  for  it  could  be 
levied  only  by  means  of  domiciliary  visits,  and  of  such  visits 
the  English  have  always  been  impatient  to  a  degree  which 
the  people  of  other  countries  can  but  faintly  conceive.    The 

30  poorer  householders  were  frequently  unable  to   pay  their 

*  I  do  not,  of  course,  pretend  to  strict  accuracy  here  ;  but  I  believe 
that  whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare  the  last  returns  of  hearth 
money  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third  with  the  census  of  1841  will 
come  to  a  conclusion  not  very  different  from  mine. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  9 

hearth  money  to  the  day.  When  this  happened,  their  furni- 
ture was  distrained  without  mercy ;  for  the  tax  was  farmed 
and  a  farmer  of  taxes  is,  of  all  creditors,  proverbially  the 
most  rapacious.  The  collectors  were  loudly  accused  of  per- 
forming their  unpopular  duty  with  harshness  and  insolence,  s 
It  was  said  that  as  soon  as  they  appeared  at  the  threshold 
of  a  cottage,  the  children  began  to  wail,  and  the  old  women 
ran  to  hide  their  earthenware.  Nay,  the  single  bed  of  a 
poor  family  had  sometimes  been  carried  away  and  sold. 
The  net  annual  receipt  from  this  tax  was  two  hundred  lo 
thousand  pounds.* 

When  to  the  three  great  sources  of  income  which  have 
been  mentioned  we  add  the  royal  domains,  then  far  more 
extensive  than  at  present,  the  first  fruits  and  tenths,  which 
had  not  yet  been  surrendered  to  the  Church,  the  duchies  of  15 
Cornwall  and  Lancaster,  the  forfeitures  and  the  fines,  we  shall 
find  that  the  whole  annual  revenue  of  the  crown  may  be 
fairly  estimated  at  about  fourteen  hundred  thousand  pounds. 

*  There  are,  in  the  Pepysian  Library,  some  ballads  of  that  age  on 
the  chimney  money.     I  will  give  a  specimen  or  two  :  20 

"  The  good  old  dames,  whenever  they  the  chimney  man  espied, 
Unto  their  nooks  they  haste  away,  their  pots  and  pipkins  hide. 
There  is  not  one  old  dame  in  ten,  and  search  the  nation  through. 
But,  if  you  talk  of  chimney  men,  will  spare  a  curse  or  two." 

Again :  25 

"  Like  plundering  soldiers  they  'd  enter  the  door, 
And  make  a  distress  on  the  goods  of  the  poor. 
While  frighted  poor  children  distractedly  cried  : 
This  nothing  abated  their  insolent  pride." 

In  the  British  Museum  there  are  doggerel  verses  composed  on  the  30 
same  subject  and  in  the  same  spirit : 

"  Or  if  through  poverty  it  be  not  paid. 
For  cruelty  to  tear  away  the  single  bed, 
On  which  the  poor  man  rests  his  weary  head, 
At  once  deprives  him  of  bis  rest  and  bread."  35 


10  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

Of  the  post  ofBce,  more  will  hereafter  be  said.  The  profits 
of  that  establishment  had  been  appropriated  by  parliament 
to  the  Duke  of  York. 

The  king's  revenue  was,  or  rather  ought  to  have  been, 

5  charged  with  the  payment  of  about  eighty  thousand  pounds 
a  year,  the  interest  of  the  sum  fraudulently  detained  in  the 
Exchequer  by  the  Cabal."  While  Danby^  was  at  the  head 
of  the  finances,  the  creditors  had  received  their  dividends, 
though  not  with  the  strict  punctuality  of  modern  times;  but 

lo  those  who  had  succeeded  him  at  the  treasury  had  been  less 
expert,  or  less  solicitous  to  maintain  public  faith.  Since  the 
victory  won  by  the  court  over  the  Whigs,  not  a  farthing  had 
been  paid;  and  no  redress  was  granted  to  the  sufferers,  till 
a  new  dynasty  had  established  a  new  system.     There  can 

15  be  no  greater  error  than  to  imagine  that  the  device  of  meet- 
ing the  exigencies  of  the  state  by  loans  was  imported  into 
our  island  by  William  the  Third.  From  a  period  of  imme- 
morial antiquity  it  had  been  the  practice  of  every  English 
government    to    contract    debts.      What    the    Revolution  ^^ 

20  introduced  was  the  practice  of  honestly  paying  them. 

By  plundering  the  public  creditor,  it  was  possible  to  make 
an  income  of  about  fourteen  hundred  thousand  pounds,  with 
some  occasional  help  from  France,  support  the  necessary 
charges  of  the  government  and  the  wasteful  expenditure  of 

25  the  court.  For  that  load  which  pressed  most  heavily  on  the 
finances  of  the  great  continental  states  was  here  scarcely 
felt.  In  France,  Germany,  and  the  Netherlands,  armies, 
such  as  Henry  the  Fourth  and  Philip  the  Second  1*  had 
never  employed  in  time  of  war,  were  kept  up  in  the  midst 

30  of  peace.  Bastions  and  ravelins  were  everywhere  rising, 
constructed  on  principles  unknown  to  Parma  "  or  Spinola.^* 
Stores  of  artillery  and  ammunition  were  accumulated,  such 
as  even  Richelieu,^^  whom  the  preceding  generation  had 
regarded  as  a  worker  of  prodigies,  would  have  pronounced 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  11 

fabulous.  No  man  could  journey  many  leagues  in  those 
countries  without  hearing  the  drums  of  a  regiment  on 
march,  or  being  challenged  by  the  sentinels  on  the  draw- 
bridge of  a  fortress.  In  our  island,  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
possible  to  live  long  and  to  travel  far  without  being  once  5 
reminded,  by  any  martial  sight  or  sound,  that  the  defence  of 
nations  had  become  a  science  and  a  calling.  The  majority 
of  Englishmen  who  were  under  twenty-five  years  of  age  had 
probably  never  seen  a  company  of  regular  soldiers.  Of  the 
cities  which,  in  the  Civil  War,  had  valiantly  repelled  hostile  10 
armies,  scarce  one  was  now  capable  of  sustaining  a  siege. 
The  gates  stood  open  night  and  day.  The  ditches  were  dry. 
The  ramparts  had  been  suffered  to  fall  into  decay,  or  were 
repaired  only  that  the  townsfolk  might  have  a  pleasant  walk 
on  summer  evenings.  Of  the  old  baronial  keeps  many  had  15 
been  shattered  by  the  cannon  of  Fairfax  and  CromwelV^ 
and  lay  in  heaps  of  ruin,  overgrown  with  ivy.  Those  which 
remained  had  lost  their  martial  character,  and  were  now 
rural  palaces  of  the  aristocracy.  The  moats  were  turned 
into  preserves  of  carp  and  pike.  The  mounds  were  planted  2c 
with  fragrant  shrubs,  through  which  spiral  walks  ran  up  to 
summer  houses  adorned  with  mirrors  and  paintings.  There 
were  still  to  be  seen,  on  the  capes  of  the  seacoast  and  on 
many  inland  hills,  tall  posts,  surmounted  by  barrels.  Once 
those  barrels  had  been  filled  with  pitch.  Watchmen  had  25 
been  set  round  them  in  seasons  of  danger;  and,  within  a  few 
hours  after  a  Spanish  sail  had  been  discovered  in  the  chan- 
nel, or  after  a  thousand  Scottish  moss-troopers  had  crossed 
the  Tweed,  the  signal  fires  were  blazing  fifty  miles  off,  and 
whole  counties  were  rising  in  arms.  But  many  years  had  30 
now  elapsed  since  the  beacons  had  been  lighted,  and  they 
were  regarded  rather  as  curious  relics  of  ancient  manners 
than  as  parts  of  a  machinery  necessary  to  the  safety  of  the 
state. 


12  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

The  only  army  which  the  law  recognized  was  the  militia. 
That  force  had  been  remodeled  by  two  acts  of  parliament 
passed  shortly  after  the  Restoration.  Every  man  who  pos- 
sessed five  hundred  pounds  a  year  derived  from  land,  or  six 

5  thousand  pounds  of  personal  estate,  was  bound  to  provide, 
equip,  and  pay,  at  his  own  charge,  one  horseman.  Every 
man  who  had  fifty  pounds  a  year,  derived  from  land,  or  six 
hundred  pounds  of  personal  estate,  was  charged  in  like 
manner  with  one  pikeman  or  musketeer.    Smaller  proprietors 

lo  were  joined  together  in  a  kind  of  society,  for  which  our  lan- 
guage does  not  afford  a  special  name,  but  which  an  Athenian 
would  have  called  a  Synteleia;  and  each  society  was  required 
to  furnish,  according  to  its  means,  a  horse  soldier  or  a  foot 
soldier.     The  whole  number  of  cavalry  and    infantry  thus 

15  maintained  was  popularly  estimated  at  a  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  men. 

The  king  was,  by  the  ancient  constitution  of  the  realm, 
and  by  the  recent  and  solemn  acknowledgment  of  both 
Houses  of  parliament,  the  sole  captain-general'  of  this  large 

20  force.  The  lords  lieutenants  and  their  deputies  held  the 
command  under  him,  and  appointed  meetings  for  drilling 
and  inspection.  The  time  occupied  by  such  meetings,  how- 
ever, was  not  to  exceed  fourteen  days  in  one  year.  The 
justices  of  the  peace  were  authorized  to  inflict  slight  penal- 

25  ties  for  breaches  of  discipline.  Of  the  ordinary  cost  no  part 
was  paid  by  the  crown;  but,  when  the  trainbands  were  called 
out  against  an  enemy,  their  subsistence  became  a  charge  on 
the  general  revenue  of  the  state,  and  they  were  subject  to  the 
utmost  rigor  of  martial  law. 

30  There  were  those  who  looked  on  the  militia  with  no 
friendly  eye.  Men  who  had  traveled  much  on  the  Conti- 
nent, who  had  marveled  at  the  stern  precision  with  which 
every  sentinel  moved  and  spoke  in  the  citadels  built  by 
Vauban,^^  who  had  seen  the  mighty  armies  which  poured 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  13 

along  all  the  roads  of  Germany  to  chase  the  Ottoman  from 
the  gates  of  Vienna,  and  who  had  been  dazzled  by  the  well- 
ordered  pomp  of  the  household  troops  of  Louis,^"  sneered 
much  at  the  way  in  which  the  peasants  of  Devonshire  and 
Yorkshire  marched  and  wheeled,  shouldered  muskets,  and  5 
ported  pikes.  The  enemies  of  the  liberties  and  religion  of 
England  looked  with  aversion  on  a  force  which  could  not, 
without  extreme  risk,  be  employed  against  those  liberties  and 
that  religion,  and  missed  no  opportunity  of  throwing  ridicule 
on  the  rustic  soldiery.*  Enlightened  patriots,  when  they  10 
contrasted  these  rude  levies  with  the  battalions  which,  in 
time  of  war,  a  few  hours  might  bring  to  the  coast  of  Kent 
or  Sussex,  were  forced  to  acknowledge  that,  dangerous  as  it 
might  be  to  keep  up  a  permanent  military  establishment,  it 
might  be  more  dangerous  still  to  stake  the  honor  and  inde-  15 
pendence  of  the  country  on  the  result  of  a  contest  between 
ploughmen  officered  by  justices  of  the  peace,  and  veteran 
warriors  led  by  marshals  of  France.  In  parliament,  however, 
it  was  necessary  to  express  such  opinions  with  some  reserve, 
for  the  militia  was  an  institution  eminently  popular.  Every  20 
reflection  thrown  on  it  excited  the  indignation  of  both  the 
great  parties  in  the  state,  and  especially  of  that  party  which 

*  Dryden,  in  his  Cymon  and  Iphigenia,  expressed,  with  his  usual 
keenness  and  energy,  the  sentiments  which  had  been  fashionable  among 
the  sycophants  of  James  the  Second :  25 

"  The  country  rings  around  with  loud  alarms, 
And  raw  in  fields  the  rude  militia  swarms; 
Mouths  without  hands,  maintained  at  vast  expense, 
In  peace  a  charge,  in  war  a  weak  defence. 

Stout  once  a  month  they  march,  a  blustering  band,  30 

And  ever,  but  in  time  of  need,  at  hand. 
This  was  the  morn  when,  issuing  on  the  guard. 
Drawn  up  in  rank  and  file,  they  stood  prepared 
Of  seeming  arms  to  make  a  short  essay. 
Then  hasten  to  be  drunk,  the  business  of  the  day."  35 


14  ENGLAND  IN  1686. 

was  distinguished  by  peculiar  zeal  for  monarchy  and  for  the 
Anglican  Church.  The  array  of  the  counties  was  commanded 
almost  exclusively  by  Tory  noblemen  and  gentlemen.  They 
were  proud  of  their  military  rank,  and  considered  an  insult 

5  offered  to  the  service  to  which  they  belonged  as  offered  to 
themselves.  They  were  also  perfectly  aware  that  whatever 
was  said  against  a  militia  was  said  in  favor  of  a  standing 
army;  and  the  name  of  standing  army  was  hateful  to  them. 
One  such  army  had  held  dominion  in  England;  and  under 

lo  that  dominion  the  king  had  been  murdered,  the  nobility 
degraded,  the  landed  gentry  plundered,  the  Church  perse- 
cuted. There  was  scarce  a  rural  grandee  who  could  not 
tell  a  story  of  wrongs  and  insults  suffered  by  himself  or  by 
his  father,  at  the  hands  of  the  parliamentary  soldiers.     One 

15  old  Cavalier  had  seen  half  his  manor  house  blown  up.  The 
hereditary  elms  of  another  had  been  hewn  down.  A  third 
could  never  go  into  his  parish  church  without  being  reminded, 
by  the  defaced  scutcheons  and  headless  statues  of  his  ances- 
try, that   Oliver's   redcoats   had  once   stabled   their  horses 

20  there.^^  The  consequence  was  that  those  very  royalists  who 
were  most  ready  to  fight  for  the  king  themselves  were  the 
last  persons  whom  he  could  venture  to  ask  for  the  means  of 
hiring  regular  troops. 

Charles,  however,  had,  a  few  months  after  his  restoration, 

25  begun  to  form  a  small  standing  army.  He  felt  that,  without 
some  better  protection  than  that  of  the  trainbands  and  beef- 
eaters, his  palace  and  person  would  hardly  be  secure  in  the 
vicinity  of  a  great  city  swarming  with  warlike  fifth-monarchy^^ 
men  who  had  just  been  disbanded.     He  therefore,  careless 

30  and  profuse  as  he  was,  contrived  to  spare  from  his  pleasures 
a  sum  sufficient  to  keep  up  a  body  of  guards.  With  the 
increase  of  trade  and  of  public  wealth  his  revenues  increased; 
and  he  was  thus  enabled,  in  spite  of  the  occasional  murmurs 
and  remonstrances  of  the  Commons,  to  make  gradual  addi- 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  15 

tions  to  his  regular  forces.  One  considerable  addition  was 
made  a  few  months  before  the  close  of  his  reign.  The 
costly,  useless,  and  pestilential  settlement  of  Tangier  was 
abandoned  to  the  barbarians  who  dwelt  around  it ;  and  the 
garrison,  consisting  of  one  regiment  of  horse  and  two  s 
regiments  of  foot,  was  brought  to  England. 

The  little  army  thus  formed  by  Charles  the  Second  was 
the  germ  of  that  great  and  renowned  army  which  has,  in  the 
present  century,  marched  triumphant  into  Madrid  and  Paris, 
into  Canton  and  Candahar.  The  Life  Guards,  who  now  lo 
form  two  regiments,  were  then  distributed  into  three  troops, 
each  of  which  consisted  of  two  hundred  carabineers,  exclu- 
sive of  officers.  This  corps,  to  which  the  safety  of  the  king 
and  royal  family  was  confided,  had  a  very  peculiar  character. 
Even  the  privates  were  designated  as  gentlemen  of  the  guard.  15 
Many  of  them  were  of  good  families,  and  had  held  commis- 
sions in  the  Civil  War.  Their  pay  was  far  higher  than  that  of 
the  most  favored  regiment  of  our  time,  and  would  in  that  age 
have  been  thought  a  respectable  provision  for  the  younger 
son  of  a  country  gentleman.  Their  fine  horses,  their  rich  20 
housings,  their  cuirasses,  and  their  buff  coats  adorned  with 
ribbons,  velvet,  and  gold  lace  made  a  splendid  appearance 
in  St.  James's  Park.  A  small  body  of  grenadier  dragoons, 
who  came  from  a  lower  class  and  received  lower  pay,  was 
attached  to  each  troop.  Another  body  of  household  cavalry  25 
distinguished  by  blue  coats  and  cloaks,  and  still  called  the 
Blues,  was  generally  quartered  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
capital.  Near  the  capital  lay  also  the  corps  which  is  now 
designated  as  the  first  regiment  of  dragoons,  but  which  was 
then  the  only  regiment  of  dragoons  on  the  English  establish-  30 
ment.  It  had  recently  been  formed  out  of  the  cavalry  who 
had  returned  from  Tangier.  A  single  troop  of  dragoons, 
which  did  not  form  part  of  any  regiment,  was  stationed  near 
Berwick,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  peace  among  the 


16  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

moss-troopers  of  the  border.  For  this  species  of  service  the 
dragoon  was  then  thought  to  be  peculiarly  qualified.  He 
has  since  become  a  mere  horse  soldier.  But  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  he  was  accurately  described  by  Montecuculi 
5  as  a  foot  soldier  who  used  a  horse  only  in  order  to  arrive 
with  more  speed  at  the  place  where  military  service  was  to 
be  performed. 

The  household  infantry  consisted  of  two  regiments,  which 
were  then,  as  now,  called  the  first  regiment  of  Foot  Guards 

lo  and  the  Coldstream  Guards.  They  generally  did  duty  near 
Whitehall  and  St.  James's  Palace.  As  there  were  then  no 
barracks,  and  as,  by  the  Petition  of  Right,  they  could  not 
be  quartered  on  private  families,  they  filled  all  the  alehouses 
of  Westminster  and  the  Strand. 

15  There  were  five  other  regiments  of  foot.  One  of  these, 
called  the  Admiral's  Regiment,  was  especially  destined  to 
service  on  board  of  the  fleet.  The  remaining  four  still  rank 
as  the  first  four  regiments  of  the  line.  Two  of  these  repre- 
sented two  bands  which  had  long  sustained  on  the  Continent 

20  the  fame  of  English  valor.  The  first,  or  Royal  Regiment, 
had,  under  the  great  Gustavus,  borne  a  conspicuous  part  in 
the  deliverance  of  Germany.  The  third  regiment,  distin- 
guished by  flesh-colored  facings,  from  which  it  derived  the 
well-known  name  of  the  Buffs,  had,  under  Maurice  of  Nas- 

25  sau,^^  fought  not  less  bravely  for  the  deliverance  of  the 
Netherlands.  Both  these  gallant  brigades  had  at  length, 
after  many  vicissitudes,  been  recalled  from  foreign  service 
by  Charles  the  Second,  and  had  been  placed  on  the  English 
establishment. 

30  The  regiments  which  now  rank  as  the  second  and  fourth 
of  the  line  had,  in  1685,  just  returned  from  Tangier,  bringing 
with  them  cruel  and  licentious  habits,  contracted  in  a  long 
course  of  warfare  with  the  Moors.  A  few  companies  of  in- 
fantry which  had  not  been  regimented  lay  in   garrison  at 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  17 

Tilbury   Fort,  at  Portsmouth,   at   Plymouth,   and    at    some 
other  important  stations  on  or  near  the  coast. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  great 
change  had  taken  place  in  the  arms  of  the  infantry.     The 
pike  had  been  gradually  giving  place  to  the  musket ;  and  at    s 
the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  most  of  his  foot 
were  musketeers.    Still,  however,  there  was  a  large  intermix- 
ture of  pikemen.      Each   class  of  troops  was  occasionally 
instructed  in  the  use  of  the  weapon  which  peculiarly  belonged 
to  the  other  class.     Every  foot  soldier  had  at  his   side  a  lo 
sword  for  close  fight.      The  dragoon  was  armed  like  a  mus- 
keteer, and  was  also  provided  with  a  weapon,  which   had, 
during  many  years,  been  gradually  coming  into  use,  and  which 
the  English  then  called  a  dagger,  but  which,  from   the  time 
of  our  Revolution,  has  been  known  among  us  by  the  French  15 
name  of  bayonet.     The  bayonet  seems  not  to  have  been  so 
formidable    an    instrument   of   destruction  as    it  has   since 
become,  for  it  was  inserted  in  the  muzzle  of  the  gun;    and 
in   action    much   time    was   lost   while    the   soldier   unfixed 
his  bayonet  in  order  to  fire,   and  fixed   it   again   in   order  20 
to  charge. 

The  regular  army  which  was  kept  up  in  England  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1685  consisted,  all  ranks  included,  of 
about  seven  thousand  foot  and  about  seventeen  hundred 
cavalry  and  dragoons.  The  whole  charge  amounted  to  25 
about  two  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  pounds  a  year,  less 
than  a  tenth  part  of  what  the  military  establishment  of 
France  then  cost  in  time  of  peace.  The  daily  pay  of  a  pri- 
vate in  the  Life  Guards  was  four  shillings,  in  the  Blues  two 
shillings  and  sixpence,  in  the  Dragoons  eighteenpence,  3<^ 
in  the  Foot  Guards  tenpence,  and  in  the  line  eightpence. 
The  discipline  was  lax,  and  indeed  could  not  be  other- 
wise. The  common  law  of  England  knew  nothing  of  courts- 
martial,  and  made  no  distinction,  in  time  of  peace,  between 


18  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

a  soldier  and  any  other  subject ;  nor  could  the  government 
then  venture  to  ask  even  the  most  loyal  parliament  for  a 
mutiny  bill.  A  soldier,  therefore,  by  knocking  down  his 
colonel,  incurred  only  the  ordinary  penalties  of  assault  and 
5  battery,  and  by  refusing  to  obey  orders,  by  sleeping 
on  guard,  or  by  deserting  his  colors,  incurred  no  legal 
penalty  at  all.  Military  punishments  were  doubtless  inflicted 
during  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second;  but  they  were 
inflicted   very  sparingly,   and  in   such  a  manner  as  not  to 

lo  attract  public  notice  or  to  produce  an  appeal  to  the  courts 
of  Westminster  Hall. 

Such  an  army  as  has  been  described  was  not  very  likely 
to  enslave  live  millions  of  Englishmen.  It  would  indeed 
have  been  hardly  able  to  suppress  an  insurrection  in  London 

15  if  the  trainbands  of  the  city  had  joined  the  insurgents.  Nor 
could  the  king  expect  that,  if  a  rising  took  place  in  England, 
he  would  be  able  to  obtain  help  from  his  other  dominions. 
For,  though  both  Scotland  and  Ireland  supported  separate 
military  establishments,  those  establishments  were  not  more 

20  than  sufficient  to  keep  down  the  Puritan  malcontents  of  the 
former  kingdom,  and  the  Popish  malcontents  of  the  latter. 
The  government  had,  however,  an  important  military  re- 
source which  must  not  be  left  unnoticed.  There  were  in  the 
pay  of   the  United   Provinces  six  fine  regiments,  formerly 

25  commanded  by  the  brave  Ossory.^  Of  these  regiments 
three  had  been  raised  in  England  and  three  in  Scotland. 
Their  native  prince  had  reserved  to  himself  the  power  of 
recalling  them,  if  he  needed  their  help  against  a  foreign 
or  domestic  enemy.     In  the  meantime  they  were  maintained 

30  without  any  charge  to  him,  and  were  kept  under  an  excellent 
discipline,  to  which  he  could  not  have  ventured  to  subject 
them. 

If  the  jealousy  of  the  parliament  and  of  the  nation  made 
it  impossible  for  the  king  to  maintain  a  formidable  standing 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  19 

army,  no  similar  impediment  prevented  him  from  making 
England  the  first  of  maritime  powers.  Both  Whigs  and 
Tories  were  ready  to  applaud  every  step  tending  to  increase 
the  efficiency  of  that  force  which,  while  it  was  the  best  pro- 
tection of  the  island  against  foreign  enemies,  was  powerless  5 
against  civil  liberty.  All  the  greatest  exploits  achieved 
within  the  memory  of  that  generation  by  English  soldiers  had 
been  achieved  in  war  against  English  princes.  The  victories 
of  our  sailors  had  been  won  over  foreign  foes,  and  had 
averted  havoc  and  rapine  from  our  own  soil.  By  at  least  10 
half  the  nation  the  battle  of  Naseby^  was  remembered  with 
horror,  and  the  battle  of  Dunbar '^^  with  pride  checkered  by 
many  painful  feelings;  but  the  defeat  of  the  Armada,^"  and 
the  encounters  of  Blake ^^  with  the  Hollanders  and  Spaniards 
were  recollected  with  unmixed  exultation  by  all  parties.  15 
Ever  since  the  Restoration,  the  Commons,  even  when  most 
discontented  and  most  parsimonious,  had  always  been 
bountiful  even  to  profusion  where  the  interest  of  the  navy 
was  concerned.  It  had  been  represented  to  them,  while 
Danby  was  minister,  that  many  of  the  vessels  in  the  royal  20 
fleet  were  old  and  unfit  for  sea;  and,  although  the  House 
was,  at  that  time,  in  no  giving  mood,  an  aid  of  near  six 
hundred  thousand  pounds  had  been  granted  for  the  building 
of  thirty  new  men-of-war. 

But  the  liberality  of  the  nation  had  been  made  fruitless  by  25 
the  vices  of  the  government.  The  list  of  the  king's  ships, 
it  is  true,  looked  well.  There  were  nine  first  rates,  fourteen 
second  rates,  thirty-nine  third  rates,  and  many  smaller  ves- 
sels. The  first  rates,  indeed,  were  less  than  the  third  rates 
of  our  time  ;  and  the  third  rates  would  not  now  rank  as  very  30 
large  frigates.  This  force,  however,  if  it  had  been  efficient, 
would  in  those  days  have  been  regarded  by  the  greatest 
potentate  as  formidable;.  But  it  existed  only  on  paper. 
When  the  reign  of  Charles  terminated,  his  navy  had  sunk 


20  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

into  degradation  and  decay,  such  as  would  be  almost  incred- 
ible if  it  were  not  certified  to  us  by  ttie  independent  and 
concurring  evidence  of  witnesses  whose  authority  is  beyond 
exception.  Pepys,^^  the  ablest  man  in  the  English  admiralty, 
5  drew  up,  in  the  year  1684,  a  memorial  on  the  state  of  his 
department,  for  the  information  of  Charles.  A  few  months 
later  Bonrepaux,  the  ablest  man  in  the  French  admiralty, 
having  visited  England  for  the  especial  purpose  of  ascertain- 
ing her  maritime  strength,  laid  the  result  of  his  inquiries 

10  before  Louis.  The  two  reports  are  to  the  same  effect. 
Bonrepaux  declared  that  he  found  everything  in  disorder 
and  in  miserable  condition,  that  the  superiority  of  the  French 
marine  was  acknowledged  with  shame  and  envy  at  White- 
hall, and  that  the  state  of  our  shipping  and  dockyards  was 

15  of  itself  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  we  should  not  meddle  in 
the  disputes  of  Europe.  Pepys  informed  his  master  that  the 
naval  administration  was  a  prodigy  of  wastefulness,  corrup- 
tion, ignorance,  and  indolence,  that  no  estimate  could  be 
trusted,  that  no  contract  was  performed,  that  no  check  was 

20  enforced.  The  vessels  which  the  recent  liberality  of  parlia- 
ment had  enabled  the  government  to  build,  and  which  had 
never  been  out  of  harbor,  had  been  made  of  such  wretched 
timber  that  they  were  more  unfit  to  go  to  sea  than  the  old 
hulls  which  had  been  battered  thirty  years  before  by  Dutch 

25  and  Spanish  broadsides.  Some  of  the  new  men-of-war, 
indeed,  were  so  rotten  that,  unless  speedily  repaired,  they 
would  go  down  at  their  moorings.  The  sailors  were  paid 
with  so  little  punctuality  that  they  were  glad  to  find  some 
usurer  who  would  purchase  their  tickets  at  forty  per  cent 

30  discount.  The  commanders  who  had  not  powerful  friends 
at  court  were  even  worse  treated.  Some  officers  to  whom 
large  arrears  were  due,  after  vainly  importuning  the  govern- 
ment during  many  years,  had  died  for  want  of  a  morsel 
of  bread. 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  21 

Most  of  the  ships  which  were  afloat  were  commanded  by 
men  who  had  not  been  bred  to  the  sea.  This,  it  is  true, 
was  not  an  abuse  introduced  by  the  government  of  Charles. 
No  state,  ancient  or  modern,  had,  before  that  time,  made  a 
complete  separation  between  the  naval  and  military  services.  5 
In  the  great  civilized  nations  of  the  old  world,  Cimon  and 
Lysander,  Pompey  and  Agrippa^  had  fought  battles  by  sea  as 
well  as  by  land.  Nor  had  the  impulse  which  nautical  science 
received  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  produced  any 
material  improvement  in  the  division  of  labor.  At  Flodden  ^^  10 
the  right  wing  of  the  victorious  army  was  led  by  the  admiral 
of  England.  At  Jarnac  and  Moncontour'^  the  Huguenot 
ranks  were  marshaled  by  the  admiral  of  France.^  Neither 
John  of  Austria,^  the  conqueror  of  Lepanto,  nor  Lord 
Howard  of  Effingham, ^^  to  whose  direction  the  marine  of  15 
England  was  intrusted  when  the  Spanish  invaders  were 
approaching  our  shores,  had  received  the  education  of  a 
sailor.  Raleigh,^^  highly  celebrated  as  a  naval  commander, 
had  served  during  many  years  as  a  soldier  in  France,  the 
Netherlands,  and  Ireland.  Blake  had  distinguished  himself  2G 
by  his  skillful  and  valiant  defence  of  an  inland  town  before 
he  humbled  the  pride  of  Holland  and  of  Castile  on  the 
ocean.  Since  the  Restoration  the  same  system  had  been 
followed.  Great  fleets  had  been  intrusted  to  the  direction 
of  Rupert  and  Monk,^'^  Rupert,  who  was  renowned  chiefly  25 
as  a  hot  and  daring  cavalry  officer,  and  Monk,  who,  when 
he  wanted  his  ship  to  tack  to  larboard,  moved  the  mirth  of 
his  crew  by  calling  out,  "  Wheel  to  the  left." 

But  about  this  time  wise  men  began  to  perceive  that  the 
rapid  improvement,  both  of  the  art  of  war  and  of  the  art  of  30 
navigation,  made  it  necessary  to  draw  a  line  between  two 
professions  which  had  hitherto  been  confounded.  Either 
the  command  of  a  regiment  or  the  command  of  a  ship  was 
now  a  matter  quite  sufficient  to  occupy  the  attention  of  a 


22  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

single  mind.  In  the  year  1672  the  French  government 
determined  to  educate  young  men  of  good  family  from  a 
very  early  age  specially  for  the  sea  service.  But  the  English 
government,  instead  of  following  this  excellent  example,  not 
5  only  continued  to  distribute  high  naval  commands  among 
landsmen,  but  selected  for  such  commands  landsmen  who, 
even  on  land,  could  not  safely  have  been  put  in  any  impor- 
tant trust.  Any  lad  of  noble  birth,  any  dissolute  courtier, 
for  whom  one  of  the  king's  mistresses  would  speak  a  word, 

10  might  hope  that  a  ship  of  the  line,  and  with  it  the  honor  of 
the  country  and  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  brave  men,  would 
be  committed  to  his  care.  It  mattered  not  that  he  had 
never  in  his  life  taken  a  voyage  except  on  the  Thames,  that 
he  could   not  keep  his  feet  in   a  breeze,   that  he   did  not 

15  know  the  difference  between  latitude  and  longitude.  No 
previous  training  was  thought  necessary ;  or,  at  most,  he 
was  sent  to  make  a  short  trip  in  a  man-of-war,  where  he 
was  subjected  to  no  discipline,  where  he  was  treated  with 
marked  respect,  and  where  he  lived  in  a  round  of  revels  and 

20  amusements.  If,  in  the  intervals  of  feasting,  drinking,  and 
gambling,  he  succeeded  in  learning  the  meaning  of  a  few 
technical  phrases  and  the  names  of  the  points  of  the  com- 
pass, he  was  fully  qualified  to  take  charge  of  a  three-decker. 
This  is  no  imaginary  description.     In  1666,  John  Sheffield, 

25  Earl  of  Mulgrave,  at  seventeen  years  of  age,  volunteered  to 
serve  at  sea  against  the  Dutch.  He  passed  six  weeks  on 
board,  diverting  himself,  as  well  as  he  could,  in  the  society 
of  some  young  libertines  of  rank,  and  then  returned  home 
to  take  the  command  of  a  troop  of  horse.     After  this  he  was 

30  never  on  the  water  till  the  year  1672,  when  he  again  joined 
the  fleet,  and  was  almost  immediately  appointed  captain  of 
a  ship  of  eighty-four  guns,  reputed  the  finest  in  the  navy. 
He  was  then  twenty-three  years  old,  and  had  not,  in  the 
whole  course  of  his  life,  been  three  months  afloat.     As  soon 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  23 

as  he  came  back  from  sea  he  was  made  colonel  of  a  regi- 
ment of  foot.  This  is  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which 
naval  commands  of  the  highest  importance  were  then  given, 
and  a  favorable  specimen ;  for  Mulgrave,  though  he  wanted 
experience,  wanted  neither  parts  nor  courage.  Others  were  5 
promoted  in  the  same  way  who  not  only  were  not  good 
officers,  but  who  were  intellectually  and  morally  incapable 
of  ever  becoming  good  officers,  and  whose  only  recommen- 
dation was  that  they  had  been  ruined  by  folly  and  vice. 
The  chief  bait  which  allured  these  men  into  the  service  was  10 
the  profit  of  conveying  bullion  and  other  valuable  commodi- 
ties from  port  to  port,  for  both  the  Atlantic  and  the  Medi- 
terranean were  then  so  much  infested  by  pirates  from 
Barbary  that  merchants  were  not  willing  to  trust  precious 
cargoes  to  any  custody  but  that  of  a  man-of-war.  A  captain  15 
in  this  way  sometimes  cleared  several  thousands  of  pounds 
by  a  short  voyage,  and  for  this  lucrative  business  he  too 
often  neglected  the  interests  of  his  country  and  the  honor  of 
his  flag,  made  mean  submissions  to  foreign  powers,  disobeyed 
the  most  direct  injunctions  of  his  superiors,  lay  in  port  when  20 
he  was  ordered  to  chase  a  Sallee  rover,  or  ran  with  dollars 
to  Leghorn  when  his  instructions  directed  him  to  repair  to 
Lisbon.  And  all  this  he  did  with  impunity.  The  same 
interest  which  had  placed  him  in  a  post  for  which  he  was 
unfit  maintained  him  there.  No  admiral,  bearded  by  these  25 
corrupt  and  dissolute  minions  of  the  palace,  dared  to  do 
more  than  mutter  something  about  a  court-martial.  If  any 
officer  showed  a  higher  sense  of  duty  than  his  fellows,  he 
soon  found  that  he  lost  money  without  acquiring  honor. 
One  captain  who,  by  strictly  obeying  the  orders  of  the  30 
admiralty,  missed  a  cargo  which  would  have  been  worth  four 
thousand  pounds  to  him  was  told  by  Charles,  with  ignoble 
levity,  that  he  was  a  great  fool  for  his  pains. 

The  discipline  of  the  navy  was  of  a  piece  throughout. 


24  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

As  the  courtly  captain  despised  the  admiralty,  he  was  in 
turn  despised  by  his  crew.  It  could  not  be  concealed  that 
he  was  inferior  in  seamanship  to  every  foremast  man  on 
board.  It  was  idle  to  expect  that  old  sailors,  familiar  with 
5  the  hurricanes  of  the  tropics  and  with  the  icebergs  of  the 
Arctic  Circle,  would  pay  prompt  and  respectful  obedience  to 
a  chief  who  knew  no  more  of  winds  and  waves  than  could 
be  learned  in  a  gilded  barge  between  Whitehall  Stairs  '^  and 
Hampton  Court.^^     To  trust  such  a  novice  with  the  working 

lo  of  a  ship  was  evidently  impossible.  The  direction  of  the 
navigation  was  therefore  taken  from  the  captain  and  given 
to  the  master ;  but  this  partition  of  authority  produced 
innumerable  inconveniences.  The  line  of  demarcation  was 
not,  and  perhaps  could  not  be,  drawn  with  precision.    There 

IS  was,  therefore,  constant  wrangling.  The  captain,  confident 
in  proportion  to  his  ignorance,  treated  the  master  with  lordly 
contempt.  The  master,  well  aware  of  the  danger  of  dis- 
obliging the  powerful,  too  often,  after  a  struggle,  yielded 
against  his  better  judgment ;  and  it  was  well  if  the  loss  of 

2o  ship  and  crew  was  not  the  consequence.  In  general,  the 
least  mischievous  of  the  aristocratic  captains  were  those  who 
completely  abandoned  to  others  the  direction  of  their  vessels, 
and  thought  only  of  making  money  and  spending  it.  The 
way  in  which  these  men  lived  was  so  ostentatious  and  volup- 

25  tuous  that,  greedy  as  they  were  of  gain,  they  seldom  became 
rich.  They  dressed  as  if  for  a  gala  at  Versailles,  ate  off 
plate,  drank  the  richest  wines,  and  kept  harems  on  board, 
while  hunger  and  scurvy  raged  among  the  crews,  and  while 
corpses  were  daily  flung  out  of  the  port-holes. 

30  Such  was  the  ordinary  character  of  those  who  were  then 
called  gentlemen  captains.  Mingled  with  them  were  to  be 
found,  happily  for  our  country,  naval  commanders  of  a  very 
different  description,  men  whose  whole  life  had  been  passed 
on  the  deep,  and  who  had  worked  and  fought  their  way  from 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  25 

the  lowest  offices  of  the  forecastle  to  rank  and  distinction. 
One  of  the  most  eminent  of  these  officers  was  Sir  Christopher 
Mings,  who  entered  the  service  as  a  cabin  boy,  who  fell  fight- 
ing bravely  against  the  Dutch,  and  whom  his  crew,  weeping 
and  vowing  vengeance,  carried  to  the  grave.  From  him  5 
sprang,  by  a  singular  kind  of  descent,  a  line  of  valiant  and 
expert  sailors.  His  cabin  boy  was  Sir  John  Narborough; 
and  the  cabin  boy  of  Sir  John  Narborough  was  Sir  Cloudes- 
ley  Shovel. "^^  To  the  strong  natural  sense  and  dauntless 
courage  of  this  class  of  men  England  owes  a  debt  never  to  10 
be  forgotten.  It  was  by  such  resolute  hearts  that,  in  spite 
of  much  maladministration,  and  in  spite  of  the  blunders  of 
more  courtly  admirals,  our  coasts  were  protected  and  the 
reputation  of  our  flag  upheld  during  many  gloomy  and  peril- 
ous years.  But  to  a  landsman  these  tarpaulins,  as  they  were  15 
called,  seemed  a  strange  and  half-savage  race.  All  their 
knowledge  was  professional;  and  their  professional  knowl- 
edge was  practical  rather  than  scientific.  Off  their  own 
element  they  were  as  simple  as  children.  Their  deportment 
was  uncouth.  There  was  roughness  in  their  very  good-  20 
nature;  and  their  talk,  where  it  was  not  made  up  of  nautical 
phrases,  was  too  commonly  made  up  of  oaths  and  curses. 
Such  were  the  chiefs  in  whose  rude  school  were  formed 
those  sturdy  warriors  from  whom  Smollett,''^  in  the  next  age, 
drew  Lieutenant  Bowling  and  Commodore  Trunnion.  But  25 
it  does  not  appear  that  there  was  in  the  service  of  any  of  the 
Stuarts  a  single  naval  officer  such  as,  according  to  the  notions 
of  our  times,  a  naval  officer  ought  to  be,  that  is  to  say,  a  man 
versed  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  his  calling,  and  steeled 
against  all  the  dangers  of  battle  and  tempest,  yet  of  cultivated  3° 
mind  and  polished  manners.  There  were  gentlemen  and 
there  were  seamen  in  the  navy  of  Charles  the  Second.  But 
the  seamen  were  not  gentlemen,  and  the  gentlemen  were  not 
seamen. 


26  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

The  English  navy  at  that  time  might,  according  to  the 
most  exact  estimates  which  have  come  down  to  us,  have  been 
kept  in  an  efficient  state  for  three  hundred  and  eighty  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year.  Four  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year 
5  was  the  sum  actually  expended,  but  expended,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  very  little  purpose.  The  cost  of  the  French  marine 
was  nearly  the  same;  the  cost  of  the  Dutch  marine  consider- 
ably more. 

The  charge  of  the  English  ordnance  in  the  seventeenth 

lo  century  was,  as  compared  with  other  military  and  naval 
charges,  much  smaller  than  at  present.  At  most  of  the  gar- 
risons there  were  gunners,  and  here  and  there,  at  an  important 
post,  an  engineer  was  to  be  found.  But  there  was  no  regi- 
ment of  artillery,  no  brigade  of  sappers  and  miners,  no  col- 

15  lege  in  which  young  soldiers  could  learn  the  scientific  part 
of  war.  The  difficulty  of  moving  field-pieces  was  extreme. 
When,  a  few  years  later,  William  marched  from  Devonshire 
to  London,  the  apparatus  which  he  brought  with  him,  though 
such  as  had  long  been  in  constant  use  on  the  Continent,  and 

20  such  as  would  now  be  regarded  at  Woolwich  as  rude  and 
cumbrous,  excited  in  our  ancestors  an  admiration  resembling 
that  which  the  Indians  of  America  felt  for  the  Castilian 
arquebusses.  The  stock  of  gunpowder  kept  in  the  English 
forts  and  arsenals  was    boastfully  mentioned    by  patriotic 

25  writers  as  something  which  might  well  impress  neighboring 
nations  with  awe.  It  amounted  to  fourteen  or  fifteen  thou- 
sand barrels,  about  a  twelfth  of  the  quantity  which  it  is  now 
thought  necessary  to  have  always  in  store.  The  expenditure 
under  the  head  of  Ordnance  was  on  an  average  a  little  above 

30  sixty  thousand  pounds  a  year. 

The  whole  effective  charge  of  the  army,  navy,  and  ord- 
nance was  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds. 
The  non-effective  charge,  which  is  now  a  heavy  part  of  our 
public  burdens,  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed.     A  very 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  27 

small  number  of  naval  officers,  who  were  not  employed  in 
the  public  service,  drew  half  pay.  No  lieutenant  was  on  the 
list,  nor  any  captain  who  had  not  commanded  a  ship  of  the 
first  or  second  rate.  As  the  country  then  possessed  only 
seventeen  ships  of  the  first  and  second  rates  that  had  ever  5 
been  at  sea,  and  as  a  large  proportion  of  the  persons  who 
had  commanded  such  ships  had  good  posts  on  shore,  the 
expenditure  under  this  head  must  have  been  small  indeed. 
In  the  army,  half  pay  was  given  merely  as  a  special  and  tem- 
porary allowance  to  a  small  number  of  officers  belonging  to  lo 
two  regiments,  which  were  peculiarly  situated.  Greenwich 
Hospital  had  not  been  founded.  Chelsea  Hospital  was 
building;  but  the  cost  of  that  institution  was  defrayed  partly 
by  a  deduction  from  the  pay  of  the  troops,  and  partly  by  pri- 
vate subscription.  The  king  promised  to  contribute  only  15 
twenty  thousand  pounds  for  architectural  expenses,  and  five 
thousand  a  year  for  the  maintenance  of  the  invalids.  It  was 
no  part  of  the  plan  that  there  should  be  outpensioners.  The 
whole  non-effective  charge,  military  and  naval,  can  scarcely 
have  exceeded  ten  thousand  pounds  a  year.  It  now  exceeds  20 
ten  thousand  pounds  a  day. 

Of  the  expense  of  civil  government  only  a  small  portion 
was  defrayed  by  the  crown.  The  great  majority  of  the 
functionaries  whose  business  was  to  administer  justice  and 
preserve  order  either  gave  their  services  to  the  public  gratui-  25 
tously,  or  were  remunerated  in  a  manner  which  caused  no 
drain  on  the  revenue  of  the  state.  The  sheriffs,  mayors,  and 
aldermen  of  the  towns,  the  country  gentlemen  who  were  in 
the  commission  of  the  peace,  the  headboroughs,  bailiffs,  and 
petty  constables,  cost  the  king  nothing.  The  superior  courts  30 
of  law  were  chiefly  supported  by  fees. 

Our  relations  with  foreign  courts  had  been  put  on  the 
most  economical  footing.  The  only  diplomatic  agent  who 
had  the  title  of  ambassador  resided  at  Constantinople,  and 


28  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

was  partly  supported  by  the  Turkey  Company.  Even  at  the 
court  of  Versailles  England  had  only  an  envoy;  and  she  had 
not  even  an  envoy  at  the  Spanish,  Swedish,  and  Danish 
courts.  The  whole  expense  under  this  head  cannot,  in  the 
5  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  have  much 
exceeded  twenty  thousand  pounds. 

In  this  frugality  there  was  nothing  laudable.  Charles  was, 
as  usual,  niggardly  in  the  wrong  place,  and  munificent  in  the 
wrong  place.     The  public  service  was  starved  that  courtiers 

lo  might  be  pampered.  The  expense  of  the  navy,  of  the  ord- 
nance, of  pensions  to  needy  old  officers,  of  missions  to  foreign 
courts,  must  seem  small  indeed  to  the  present  generation. 
But  the  personal  favorites  of  the  sovereign,  his  ministers,  and 
the  creatures  of  those  ministers,  were  gorged  with  public 

15  money.  Their  salaries  and  pensions,  when  compared  with 
the  incomes  of  the  nobility,  the  gentry,  the  commercial  and 
professional  men  of  that  age,  will  appear  enormous.  The 
greatest  estates  in  the  kingdom  then  very  little  exceeded 
twenty  thousand  a  year.    The  Duke  of  Ormond  had  twenty- 

2o  two  thousand  a  year.  The  Duke  of  Buckingham,  before  his 
extravagance  had  impaired  his  great  property,  had  nineteen 
thousand  six  hundred  a  year.  George  Monk,  Duke  of  Albe- 
marle, who  had  been  rewarded  for  his  eminent  services  with 
immense  grants  of  crown  land,  and  who  had  been  notorious 

25  both  for  covetousness  and  for  parsimony,  left  fifteen  thousand 
a  year  of  real  estate,  and  sixty  thousand  pounds  in  money 
which  probably  yielded  seven  per  cent.  These  three  dukes 
were  supposed  to  be  three  of  the  very  richest  subjects 
in  England.     The  archbishop  of  Canterbury  can  hardly  have 

30  had  five  thousand  a  year.  The  average  income  of  a  tem- 
poral peer  was  estimated,  by  the  best-informed  persons,  at 
about  three  thousand  a  year,  the  average  income  of  a  baronet 
at  nine  hundred  a  year,  the  average  income  of  a  member  of 
parliament  at  less  than  eight  hundred  a  year.     A  thousand 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  29 

a  year  was  thought  a  large  revenue  for  a  barrister.  Two 
thousand  a  year  was  hardly  to  be  made  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench,  except  by  the  crown  lawyers.  It  is  evident, 
therefore,  that  an  official  man  would  have  been  well  paid  if 
he  had  received  a  fourth  or  fifth  part  of  what  would  now  be  5 
an  adequate  stipend.  In  fact,  however,  the  stipends  of  the 
higher  class  of  official  men  were  as  large  as  at  present,  and 
not  seldom  larger.  The  lord  treasurer,  for  example,  had 
eight  thousand  a  year,  and,  when  the  treasury  was  in  com- 
mission, the  junior  lords  had  sixteen  hundred  a  year  each.  10 
The  paymaster  of  the  forces  had  a  poundage,^'^  amounting  to 
about  five  thousand  a  year,  on  all  the  money  which  passed 
through  his  hands.  The  groom  of  the  stole  *^  had  five  thou- 
sand a  year,  the  commissioners  of  the  customs  twelve  hundred 
a  year  each,  the  lords  of  the  bedchamber  a  thousand  a  year  15 
each.  The  regular  salary,  however,  was  the  smallest  part  of 
the  gains  of  an  official  man  of  that  age.  From  the  noble- 
men who  held  the  white  staff  and  the  great  seal  down  to  the 
humblest  tidewaiter  and  ganger,  what  would  now  be  called 
gross  corruption  was  practiced  without  disguise  and  without  20 
reproach.  Titles,  places,  commissions,  pardons  were  daily 
sold  in  market  overt  by  the  great  dignitaries  of  the  realm; 
and  every  clerk  in  every  department  imitated,  to  the  best  of 
his  power,  the  evil  example. 

During  the  last  century  no  prime  minister,  however  pow-  25 
erful,  has  become  rich  in  office,  and  several  prime  ministers 
have  impaired  their  private  fortune  in  sustaining  their  public 
character.  In  the  seventeenth  century  a  statesman  who  was 
at  the  head  of  affairs  might  easily,  and  without  giving  scan- 
dal, accumulate  in  no  long  time  an  estate  amply  sufficient  to  3° 
support  a  dukedom.  It  is  probable  that  the  income  of  the 
prime  minister,  during  his  tenure  of  power,  far  exceeded 
that  of  any  other  subject.  The  place  of  lord  lieutenant  of 
Ireland  was  supposed  to  be  worth  forty  thousand  pounds  a 


30  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

year.  The  gains  of  the  Chancellor  Clarendon,  of  Arlington, 
of  Lauderdale,  and  of  Danby  were  enormous.  The  sump- 
tuous palace  to  which  the  populace  of  London  gave  the 
name  of  Dunkirk  House,  the  stately  pavilions,  the  fish  ponds, 
5  the  deer  park,  and  the  orangery  of  Euston,  the  more  than 
Italian  luxury  of  Ham,  with  its  busts,  fountains,  and  aviaries, 
were  among  the  many  signs  which  indicated  what  was  the 
shortest  road  to  boundless  wealth.  This  is  the  true  explana- 
tion of  the  unscrupulous  violence  with  which  the  statesmen 

lo  of  that  day  struggled  for  office,  of  the  tenacity  with  which, 
in  spite  of  vexations,  humiliations,  and  dangers,  they  clung 
to  it,  and  of  the  scandalous  compliances  to  which  they 
stooped  in  order  to  retain  it.  Even  in  our  own  age,  great 
as  is  the  power  of  opinion,  and  high  as  is  the  standard  of 

15  integrity,  there  would  be  great  risk  of  a  lamentable  change 
in  the  character  of  our  public  men,  if  the  place  of  first  lord 
of  the  treasury  or  secretary  of  state  were  worth  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds  a  year.  Happily  for  our  country  the 
emoluments  of  the  highest  class  of  functionaries  have  not 

20  only  not  grown  in  proportion  to  the  general  growth  of  our 
opulence,  but  have  positively  diminished. 

The  fact  that  the  sum  raised  in  England  by  taxation  has 
in  a  time  not  exceeding  two  long  lives  been  mutiplied  thirty- 
fold  is  strange,  and  may  at  first  sight  seem  appalling.     But 

25  those  who  are  alarmed  by  the  increase  of  the  public  burdens 
may  perhaps  be  reassured  when  they  have  considered  the 
increase  of  the  public  resources.  In  the  year  1685  the  value 
of  the  produce  of  the  soil  far  exceeded  the  value  of  all  the 
other  fruits  of  human  industry.    Yet  agriculture  was  in  what 

30  would  now  be  considered  as  a  very  rude  and  imperfect  state. 
The  arable  land  and  pasture  land  were  not  supposed  by  the 
best  political  arithmeticians  of  that  age  to  amount  to  much 
more  than  half  the  area  of  the  kingdom.  The  remainder 
was  believed  to  consist  of  moor,  forest,  and  fen.     These 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  31 

computations  are  strongly  confirmed  by  the  road  books  and 
maps  of  the  seventeenth  century.     From  those  books  and 
maps  it  is  clear  that  many  routes  which  now  pass  through  an 
endless  succession  of  orchards,  hayfields,  and  beanfields  then 
ran   through  nothing  but  heath,  swamp,  and  warren.*     In    5 
the  drawings  of  English  landscapes  made  in  that  age  for  the 
Grand  Duke  Cosmo,  scarce  a  hedgerow  is  to  be  seen,  and 
numerous  tracts,  now  rich  with  cultivation,  appear  as  bare 
as  Salisbury  Plain.**     At  Enfield,  hardly  out  of  sight  of  the 
smoke  of  the  capital,  was  a  region  of  five  and  twenty  miles  10 
in  circumference  which    contained  only  three   houses  and 
scarcely  any  enclosed  fields.    Deer,  as  free  as  in  an  American 
forest,  wandered  there  by  thousands.**     It  is  to  be  remarked 
that  wild  animals  of  large  size  were  then  far  more  numerous 
than  at  present.     The  last  wild  boars,  indeed,  which  had  ^5 
been  preserved  for  the  royal  diversion,  and  had  been  allowed 
to  ravage  the  cultivated  land  with    their  tusks,  had    been 
slaughtered  by  the  exasperated  rustics  during  the  license  of 
the  Civil  War.    The  last  wolf  that  has  roamed  our  island  had 
been  slain  in  Scotland  a  short  time  before  the  close  of  the  20 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second.    But  many  breeds,  now  extinct 
or  rare,  both  of  quadrupeds  and  birds,  were  still  common. 
The  fox,  whose  life  is,  in  many  counties,  held  almost  as 
sacred  as  that  of  a  human  being,  was  considered  as  a  mere 
nuisance.     Oliver  St.  John  told  the  Long  Parliament  that  25 
Strafford  was  to  be  regarded,  not  as  a  stag  or  a  hare,  to  whom 
some  law  was  to  be  given,  but  as  a  fox,  who  was  to  be  snared 
by  any  means,  and  knocked  on  the  head  without  pity.    This 
illustration  would  be  by  no  means  a  happy  one  if  addressed 
to  country  gentlemen  of  our  time;  but  in  St.  John's  day  3° 

*  The  proportion  of  unenclosed  country  seems  to  have  been  very 
great.  From  Abingdon  to  Gloucester,  for  example,  a  distance  of  forty 
or  fifty  miles,  there  was  not  a  single  enclosure,  and  scarcely  one  enclo- 
sure between  Biggleswade  and  Lincoln. 


32  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

there  were  not  seldom  great  massacres  of  foxes  to  which  the 
peasantry  thronged  with  all  the  dogs  that  could  be  mustered; 
traps  were  set;  nets  were  spread;  no  quarter  was  given ;  and 
to  shoot  a  female  with  cub  was  considered  as  a  feat  which 
5  merited  the  gratitude  of  the  neighborhood.  The  red  deer 
were  then  as  common  in  Gloucestershire  and  Hampshire  as 
they  now  are  among  the  Grampian  Hills.  On  one  occasion 
Queen  Anne,*^  on  her  way  to  Portsmouth,  saw  a  herd  of  no 
less  than  five  hundred.     The  wild  bull  with  his  white  mane 

10  was  still  to  be  found  wandering  in  a  few  of  the  southern 
forests.  The  badger  made  his  dark  and  tortuous  hole  on  the 
side  of  every  hill  where  the  copsewood  grew  thick.  The 
wild  cats  were  frequently  heard  by  night  wailing  round 
the  lodges  of  the  rangers  of  Whittlebury  and  Needwood. 

IS  The  yellow-breasted  martin  was  still  pursued  in  Cranbourne 
Chase  for  his  fur,  reputed  inferior  only  to  that  of  the  sable. 
Fen  eagles,  measuring  more  than  nine  feet  between  the 
extremities  of  the  wings,  preyed  on  fish  along  the  coast  of 
Norfolk.     On  all  the   downs,  from  the  British  Channel  to 

20  Yorkshire,  huge  bustards  strayed  in  troops  of  fifty  or  sixty, 
and  were  often  hunted  with  greyhounds.  The  marshes  of 
Cambridgeshire  and  Lincolnshire  were  covered  during  some 
months  of  every  year  by  immense  clouds  of  cranes.  Some 
of  these  races  the   progress  of  cultivation  has  extirpated. 

25  Of  others  the  numbers  are  so  much  diminished  that  men 
crowd  to  gaze  at  a  specimen  as  at  a  Bengal  tiger  or  a  Polar 
bear. 

The  progress  of  this  great  change  can  nowhere  be  more 
clearly  traced  than  in  the  Statute  Book.     The  number  of 

30  enclosure  acts  passed  since  King  George  the  Second  came 
to  the  throne  exceeds  four  thousand.*^  The  area  enclosed 
under  the  authority  of  those  acts  exceeds,  on  a  moderate 
calculation,  ten  thousand  square  miles.  How  many  square 
miles  which  formerly  lay  waste  have,  during  the  same  period, 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  33 

been  fenced  and  carefully  tilled  by  the  proprietors,  without 
any  application  to  the  legislature,  can  only  be  conjectured. 
But  it  seems  highly  probable  that  a  fourth  part  of  England 
has  been,  in  the  course  of  little  more  than  a  century,  turned 
from  a  wild  into  a  garden.  5 

Even  in  those  parts  of  the  kingdom  v/hich  at  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  were  the  best  cultivated,  the 
farming,  though  greatly  improved  since  the  Civil  War,  was 
not  such  as  would  now  be  thought  skillful.  To  this  day  no 
effectual  steps  have  been  taken  by  public  authority  for  the  10 
purpose  of  obtaining  accurate  accounts  of  the  produce  of  the 
English  soil.  The  historian  must  therefore  follow,  with 
some  misgivings,  the  guidance  of  those  writers  on  statistics 
whose  reputation  for  diligence  and  fidelity  stands  highest. 
At  present  an  average  crop  of  wheat,  rye,  barley,  oats,  and  15 
beans  is  supposed  considerably  to  exceed  thirty  millions  of 
quarters.  The  crop  of  wheat  would  be  thought  poor  if 
it  did  not  exceed  twelve  millions  of  quarters.  According  to 
the  computation  made  in  the  year  1696  by  Gregory  King, 
the  whole  quantity  of  wheat,  rye,  barley,  oats,  and  20 
beans  then  annually  grown  in  the  kingdom  was  somewhat 
less  than  ten  millions  of  quarters.  The  wheat,  which  was 
then  cultivated  only  on  the  strongest  clay  and  consumed 
only  by  those  who  were  in  easy  circumstances,  he  estimated 
at  less  than  two  millions  of  quarters.  Charles  Davenant,  an  25 
acute  and  well-informed,  though  most  unprincipled  and  ran- 
corous, politician,  differed  from  King  as  to  some  of  the 
items  of  the  account,  but  came  to  nearly  the  same  general 
conclusions. 

The  rotation  of  crops  was  very  imperfectly  understood.  30 
It  was  known,  indeed,  that  some  vegetables  lately  introduced 
into  our   island,  particularly  the  turnip,  afforded  excellent 
nutriment  in  winter  to  sheep  and  oxen ;  but  it  was  not  yet 
the  practice  to  feed  cattle  in  this  manner.     It  was  therefore 


34  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

by  no  means  easy  to  keep  them  alive  during  the  season  when 
the  grass  is  scanty.  They  were  killed  in  great  numbers  and 
salted  at  the  beginning  of  the  cold  weather;  and,  during  sev- 
eral months,  even  the  gentry  tasted  scarcely  any  fresh  animal 
5  food,  except  game  and  river  fish,  which  were  consequently 
much  more  important  articles  in  housekeeping  than  at  pres- 
ent. It  appears  from  the  Northumberland  Household  Book  ^^ 
that,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  fresh  meat  was 
never  eaten  even  by  the  gentlemen  attendant  on  a  great  earl, 

10  except  during  the  short  interval  between  midsummer  and 
Michaelmas.  But  in  the  course  of  two  centuries  an  improve- 
ment had  taken  place  ;  and  under  Charles  the  Second  it 
was  not  till  the  beginning  of  November  that  families  laid  in 
their  stock  of  salt  provisions,  then  called  Martinmas  beef. 

15  The  sheep  and  the  ox  of  that  time  were  diminutive  when 
compared  with  the  sheep  and  oxen  which  are  now  driven  to 
our  markets.  Our  native  horses,  though  serviceable,  were 
held  in  small  esteem  and  fetched  low  prices.  They  were 
valued,  one  with  another,  by  the  ablest  of  those  who  computed 

20  the  national  wealth,  at  not  more  than  fifty  shillings  each. 
Foreign  breeds  were  greatly  preferred.  Spanish  jennets 
were  regarded  as  the  finest  chargers,  and  were  imported  for 
purposes  of  pageantry  and  war.  The  coaches  of  the  aris- 
tocracy were  drawn  by  gray  Flemish  mares,  which  trotted, 

25  as  it  was  thought,  with  a  peculiar  grace,  and  endured  better 
than  any  cattle  reared  in  our  island  the  work  of  dragging  a 
ponderous  equipage  over  the  rugged  pavement  of  London. 
Neither  the  modern  dray  horse  nor  the  modern  race  horse 
was  then  known.     At  a  much  later  period  the  ancestors  of 

30  the  gigantic  quadrupeds,  which  all  foreigners  now  class 
among  the  chief  wonders  of  London,  were  brought  from  the 
marshes  of  Walcheren;  the  ancestors  of  Childers  and  Eclipse 
from  the  sands  of  Arabia.  Already,  however,  there  was 
among  our  nobility  and  gentry  a  passion  for  the  amusement? 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  35 

of  the  turf.  The  importance  of  improving  our  studs  by  an 
infusion  of  new  blood  was  strongly  felt;  and  with  this  view 
a  considerable  number  of  barbs  had  lately  been  brought  into 
the  country.  Two  men  whose  authority  on  such  subjects 
was  held  in  great  esteem,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Sir  5 
John  Fenwick,  pronounced  that  the  meanest  hack  ever 
imported  from  Tangier  would  produce  a  finer  progeny  than 
could  be  expected  from  the  best  sire  of  our  native  breed. 
They  would  not  readily  have  believed  that  a  time  would  come 
when  the  princes  and  nobles  of  neighboring  lands  would  be  10 
as  eager  to  obtain  horses  from  England  as  ever  the  English 
had  been  to  obtain  horses  from  Barbary.* 

The  increase  of  vegetable  and  animal  produce,  though 
great,  seems  small  when  compared  with  the  increase  of  our 
mineral  wealth.  In  1685  the  tin  of  Cornwall,  which  had,  15 
more  than  two  thousand  years  before,  attracted  the  Tyrian 
sails  beyond  the  pillars  of  Hercules,*^  was  still  one  of  the 
most  valuable  subterranean  productions  of  the  island.  The 
quantity  annually  extracted  from  the  earth  was  found  to  be, 
some  years  later,  sixteen  hundred  tons,  probably  about  a  20 
third  of  what  it  now  is.  But  the  veins  of  copper  which  lie 
in  the  same  region  were,  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second, 
altogether  neglected,  nor  did  any  land-owner  take  them  into 
the  account  in  estimating  the  value  of  his  property.  Corn- 
wall and  Wales  at  present  yield  annually  near  fifteen  thou-  25 
sand  tons  of  copper,  worth  near  a  million  and  a  half  sterling, 
that  is  to  say,  worth  about  twice  as  much  as  the  annual 
produce  of  all  English  mines  of  all  descriptions  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  first  bed  of  rock  salt  had  been  dis- 
covered not  long  after  the  Restoration  in  Cheshire,  but  does  30 

*  The  "  dappled  Flanders  mares  "  were  marks  of  greatness  in  the 
tune  of  Pope,  and  even  later.  The  vulgar  proverb  that  the  gray  mare 
is  the  better  horse  originated,  I  suspect,  in  the  preference  generally  given 
to  the  gray  mares  of  Flanders  over  the  finest  coach  horses  of  England. 


36  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

not  appear  to  have  been  worked  in  that  age.  The  salt, 
which  was  obtained  by  a  rude  process  from  brine  pits,  was 
held  in  no  high  estimation.  The  pans  in  which  the  manu- 
facture was  carried  on  exhaled  a  sulphurous  stench  ;  and, 
5  when  the  evaporation  was  complete,  the  substance  which  was 
left  was  scarcely  fit  to  be  used  with  food.  Physicians  attrib- 
uted the  scorbutic  and  pulmonary  complaints  which  were 
common  among  the  English  to  this  unwholesome  condiment. 
It  was  therefore   seldom  used    by  the  upper    and    middle 

lo  classes  ;  and  there  was  a  regular  and  considerable  importa- 
tion from  France.  At  present  our  springs  and  mines  not 
only  supply  our  own  immense  demand,  but  send  annually 
seven  hundred  millions  of  pounds  of  excellent  salt  to  foreign 
countries. 

IS  Far  more  important  has  been  the  improvement  of  our  iron 
works.  Such  works  had  long  existed  in  our  island,  but  had 
not  prospered,  and  had  been  regarded  with  no  favorable  eye 
by  the  government  and  by  the  public.  It  was  not  then  the 
practice  to  employ  coal  for  smelting  the  ore  ;  and  the  rapid 

2o  consumption  of  wood  excited  the  alarm  of  politicians.  As 
early  as  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  there  had  been  loud  com- 
plaints that  whole  forests  were  cut  down  for  the  purpose  of 
feeding  the  furnaces  ;  and  the  parliament  had  interfered  to 
prohibit  the  manufacturers  from  burning  timber.    The  manu- 

25  facture  consequently  languished.  At  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second,  great  part  of  the  iron  which  was 
used  in  the  country  was  imported  from  abroad;  and  the  whole 
quantity  cast  here  annually  seems  not  to  have  exceeded  ten 
thousand  tons.     At  present  the  trade  is  thought  to  be  in  a 

30  depressed  state  if  less  than  eight  hundred  thousand  tons  are 
produced  in  a  year. 

One  mineral,  perhaps  more  important  than  iron  itself, 
remains  to  be  mentioned.  Coal,  though  very  little  used  in 
any  species  of  manufacture,  was  already  the  ordinary  fuel 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  37 

in  some  districts  which  were  fortunate  enough  to  possess 
large  beds,  and  in  the  capital,  which  could  easily  be  supplied 
by  water  carriage.  It  seems  reasonable  to  believe  that  at 
least  one-half  of  the  quantity  then  extracted  from  the  pits 
was  consumed  in  London.  The  consumption  of  London  5 
seemed  to  the  writers  of  that  age  enormous,  and  was  often 
mentioned  by  them  as  a  proof  of  the  greatness  of  the  impe- 
rial city.  They  scarcely  hoped  to  be  believed  when  they 
affirmed  that  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  chaldrons, 
that  is  to  say,  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  tons,  10 
were,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 
brought  to  the  Thames.  At  present  near  three  millions  and 
a  half  of  tons  are  required  yearly  by  the  metropolis;  and  the 
whole  annual  produce  cannot,  on  the  most  moderate  compu- 
tation, be  estimated  at  less  than  twenty  millions  of  tons.*       15 

While  these  great  changes  have  been  in  progress,  the  rent 
of  land  has,  as  might  be  expected,  been  almost  constantly 
rising.  In  some  districts  it  has  multiplied  more  than  tenfold. 
In  some  it  has  not  more  than  doubled.  It  has  probably,  on 
the  average,  quadrupled.  20 

Of  the  rent,  a  large  proportion  was  divided  among  the 
country  gentlemen,  a  class  of  persons  whose  position  and 
character  it  is  most  important  that  we  should  clearly  under- 
stand ;  for  by  their  influence  and  by  their  passions  the 
fate  of  the  nation  was,  at  several  important  conjunctures,  25 
determined. 

We  should  be  much  mistaken  if  we  pictured  to  ourselves 
the  squires  of  the  seventeenth  century  as  men  bearing  a  close 
resemblance  to  their  descendants,  the  county  members  and 
chairmen  of  quarter  sessions  with  whom  we  are  familiar.  30 
The  modern  country  gentleman  generally  receives  a  liberal 
education,  passes  from   a  distinguished  school  to  a  distin- 

*  In  1845  the  quantity  of  coal  brought  into  London  appeared,  by  the 
parliamentary  returns,  to  be  3,460,000  tons. 


38  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

guished  college,  and  has  every  opportunity  to  become  an 
excellent  scholar.  He  has  generally  seen  something  of  for- 
eign countries.  A  considerable  part  of  his  life  has  generally 
been  passed  in  the  capital,  and  the  refinements  of  the  capital 

5  follow  him  into  the  country.  There  is  perhaps  no  class  of 
dwellings  so  pleasing  as  the  rural  seats  of  the  English  gentry. 
In  the  parks  and  pleasure-grounds,  nature,  dressed  yet  not 
disguised  by  art,  wears  her  almost  alluring  form.  In  the 
buildings  good  sense  and  good  taste  combine  to  produce  a 

10  happy  union  of  the  comfortable  and  the  graceful.  The  pic- 
tures, the  musical  instruments,  the  library  would  in  any 
other  country  be  considerered  as  proving  the  owner  to  be 
an  eminently  polished  and  accomplished  man.  A  country 
gentleman  who  witnessed  the  Revolution  was   probably  in 

15  receipt  of  about  a  fourth  part  of  the  rent  which  his  acres 
now  yield  to  his  posterity.  He  was,  therefore,  as  compared 
with  his  posterity,  a  poor  man,  and  was  generally  under  the 
necessity  of  residing,  with  little  interruption,  on  his  estate. 
To  travel  on  the  Continent,  to  maintain  an  establishment  in 

20  London,  or  even  to  visit  London  frequently,  were  pleasures 
in  which  only  the  great  proprietors  could  indulge.  It  may 
be  confidently  affirmed  that  of  the  squires  whose  names  were 
in  King  Charles's  commissions  of  peace  and  lieutenancy  not 
one  in  twenty  went  to  town  once  in  five  years,  or  had  ever 

25  in  his  life  wandered  so  far  as  Paris.  Many  lords  of  manors 
had  received  an  education  differing  little  from  that  of  their 
menial  servants.  The  heir  of  an  estate  often  passed  his 
boyhood  and  youth  at  the  seat  of  his  family  with  no  better 
tutors  than  grooms  and  gamekeepers,  and  scarce  attained 

30  learning  enough  to  sign  his  name  to  a  mittimus.  If  he  went 
to  school  and  to  college,  he  generally  returned  before  he  was 
twenty  to  the  seclusion  of  the  old  hall,  and  there,  unless  his 
mind  were  very  happily  constituted  by  nature,  soon  forgot 
his   academical  pursuits  in  rural  business   and   pleasures. 


ENGLAND   IN  16S5.  39 

His  chief  serious  employment  was  the  care  of  his  property. 
He  examined  samples  of  grain,  handled  pigs,  and  on  market 
days  made  bargains  over  a  tankard  with  drovers  and  hop 
merchants.  His  chief  pleasures  were  commonly  derived  from 
field  sports  and  from  an  unrefined  sensuality.  His  language  s 
and  pronunciation  were  such  as  we  should  now  expect  to 
hear  only  from  the  most  ignorant  clowns.  His  oaths,  coarse 
jests,  and  scurrilous  terms  of  abuse  were  uttered  with  the 
broadest  accent  of  his  province.  It  was  easy  to  discern, 
from  the  first  words  which  he  spoke,  whether  he  came  from  lo 
Somersetshire  or  Yorkshire.  He  troubled  himself  little  about 
decorating  his  abode,  and,  if  he  attempted  decoration,  seldom 
produced  anything  but  deformity.  The  litter  of  a  farmyard 
gathered  under  the  windows  of  his  bedchamber,  and  the 
cabbages  and  gooseberry  bushes  grew  close  to  his  hall  door.  15 
His  table  was  loaded  with  coarse  plenty,  and  guests  were 
cordially  welcomed  to  it.  But,  as  the  habit  of  drinking  to 
excess  was  general  in  the  class  to  which  he  belonged,  and  as 
his  fortune  did  not  enable  him  to  intoxicate  large  assemblies 
daily  with  claret  or  canary,  strong  beer  was  the  ordinary  20 
beverage.  The  quantity  of  beer  consumed  in  those  days 
was  indeed  enormous.  For  beer  then  was  to  the  middle  and 
lower  classes,  not  only  all  that  beer  now  is,  but  all  that  wine, 
tea,  and  ardent  spirits  now  are.  It  was  only  at  great  houses 
or  on  great  occasions  that  foreign  drink  was  placed  on  the  25 
board.  The  ladies  of  the  house,  whose  business  it  had  com- 
monly been  to  cook  the  repast,  retired  as  soon  as  the  dishes 
had  been  devoured,  and  left  the  gentlemen  to  their  ale  and 
tobacco.  The  coarse  jollity  of  the  afternoon  was  often 
prolonged  till  the  revellers  were  laid  under  the  table.  30 

It  was  very  seldom  that  the  country  gentleman  caught 
glimpses  of  the  great  world,  and  what  he  saw  of  it  tended 
rather  to  confuse  than  to  enlighten  his  understanding.  His 
opinions  respecting  religion,  government,  foreign  countries, 


40  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

and  former  times,  having  been  derived,  not  from  study,  from 
observation,  or  from  conversation  with  enlightened  compan- 
ions, but  from  such  traditions  as  were  current  in  his  own 
small  circle,  were  the  opinions  of  a  child.  He  adhered  to 
5  them,  however,  with  the  obstinacy  which  is  generally  found 
in  ignorant  men  accustomed  to  be  fed  with  flattery.  His 
animosities  were  numerous  and  bitter.  He  hated  French- 
men and  Italians,  Scotchmen  and  Irishmen,  Papists  and 
Presbyterians,    Independents    and    Baptists,    Quakers    and 

lo  Jews.  Towards  London  and  Londoners  he  felt  an  aversion 
which  more  than  once  produced  important  political  effects. 
His  wife  and  daughter  were  in  tastes  and  acquirements 
below  a  housekeeper  or  a  stillroom  maid  of  the  present  day. 
They  stitched   and  spun,    brewed   gooseberry  wine,  cured 

15  marigolds,  and  made  the  crust  for  the  venison  pasty. 

From  this  description  it  might  be  supposed  that  the  Eng- 
lish esquire  of  the  seventeenth  century  did  not  materially 
differ  from  a  rustic  miller  or  alehouse  keeper  of  our  time. 
There  are,  however,  some  important  parts  of  his  character 

20  still  to  be  noted  which  will  greatly  modify  this  estimate. 
Unlettered, as  he  was  and  unpolished,  he  was  still  in  some 
most  important  points  a  gentleman.  He  was  a  member  of 
a  proud  and  powerful  aristocracy,  and  was  distinguished  by 
many  both  of  the  good  and  of  the  bad  qualities  which  belong 

25  to  aristocrats.  His  family  pride  was  beyond  that  of  a 
Talbot  or  a  Howard.  He  knew  the  genealogies  and  coats- 
of-arms  of  all  his  neighbors,  and  could  tell  which  of  them 
had  assumed  supporters  without  any  right,  and  which  of 
them  were  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  great-grandsons  of  alder- 

30  men.  He  was  a  magistrate,  and,  as  such,  administered 
gratuitously  to  those  who  dwelt  around  him  a  rude  patri- 
archal justice,  which,  in  spite  of  innumerable  blunders  and 
of  occasional  acts  of  tyranny,  was  yet  better  than  no  justice 
at  all.      He  was  an  officer  of  the  trainbands,  and  his  military 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  41 

dignity,  though  it  might  move  the  mirth  of  gallants  who  had 
served  a  campaign  in  Flanders,  raised  his  character  in  his 
own  eyes  and  in  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors.  Nor  indeed 
was  his  soldiership  justly  a  subject  of  derision.  In  every 
county  there  were  elderly  gentlemen  who  had  seen  service  5 
which  was  no  child's  play.  One  had  been  knighted  by 
Charles  the  First  after  the  battle  of  Edgehill,  Another  still 
wore  a  patch  over  the  scar  which  he  had  received  at  Naseby. 
A  third  had  defended  his  old  house  till  Fairfax  had  blown 
in  the  door  with  a  petard.  The  presence  of  these  old  Cava-  10 
Hers  with  their  old  swords  and  holsters,  and  with  their  old 
stories  about  Goring  and  Lunsford,  gave  to  the  musters  of 
miUtia  an  earnest  and  warlike  aspect  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  wanting.  Even  those  country  gentlemen  who 
were  too  young  to  have  themselves  exchanged  blows  with  15 
the  cuirassiers  of  the  parliament  had,  from  childhood,  been 
surrounded  by  the  traces  of  recent  war  and  fed  with  stories 
of  the  martial  exploits  of  their  fathers  and  uncles.  Thus  the 
character  of  the  English  esquire  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  compounded  of  two  elements  which  we  are  not  accus-  20 
tomed  to  find  united.  His  ignorance  and  uncouthness,  his 
low  tastes  and  gross  phrases  would,  in  our  time,  be  consid- 
ered as  indicating  a  nature  and  a  breeding  thoroughly  ple- 
beian. Yet  he  was  essentially  a  patrician,  and  had,  in  large 
measure,  both  the  virtues  and  the  vices  which  flourish  25 
among  men  set  from  their  birth  in  high  place,  and  accus- 
tomed to  authority,  to  observance,  and  to  self-respect.  It 
is  not  easy  for  a  generation  which  is  accustomed  to  find 
chivalrous  sentiments  only  in  company  with  liberal  studies 
and  polished  manners  to  imagine  to  itself  a  man  with  the  30 
deportment,  the  vocabulary,  and  the  accent  of  a  carter,  yet 
punctilious  on  matters  of  genealogy  and  precedence,  and 
ready  to  risk  his  life  rather  than  see  a  stain  cast  on  the 
honor  of  his  house.     It  is  only,  however,  by  thus  joining 


42  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

together  things  seldom  or  never  found  together  in  our  own 
experience  that  we  can  form  a  just  idea  of  that  rustic  aristoc- 
racy which  constituted  the  main  strength  of  the  armies  of 
Charles  the  First,  and  which  long  supported,  with  strange 
5  fidelity,  the  interest  of  his  descendants. 

The  gross,  uneducated,  untraveled  country  gentleman  was 
commonly  a  Tory,  but,  though  devotedly  attached  to  hered- 
itary monarchy,  he  had  no  partiality  for  courtiers  and  min- 
isters.    He  thought,  not  without  reason,  that  Whitehall  was 

lo  filled  with  the  most  corrupt  of  mankind ;  that  of  the  great 
sums  which  the  House  of  Commons  had  voted  to  the  crown 
since  the  Restoration  part  had  been  embezzled  by  cunning 
politicians  and  part  squandered  on  buffoons  and  foreign 
courtesans.     His  stout  English  heart  swelled  with  indigna- 

15  tion  at  the  thought  that  the  government  of  his  country 
should  be  subject  to  French  dictation.  Being  himself  gener- 
ally an  old  Cavalier  or  the  son  of  an  old  Cavalier,  he 
reflected  with  bitter  resentment  on  the  ingratitude  with  which 
the   Stuarts  had  requited  their    best   friends.     Those  who 

20  heard  him  grumble  at  the  neglect  with  which  he  was  treated, 
and  at  the  profusion  with  which  wealth  was  lavished  on  the 
bastards  of  Nell  Gwynn  and  Madam  Carwell,*"  would  have 
supposed  him  ripe  for  rebellion.  But  all  this  ill  humor 
lasted  only  till  the  throne  was  really  in  danger.     It  was  pre- 

25  cisely  when  those  whom  the  sovereign  had  loaded  with 
wealth  and  honors  shrank  from  his  side  that  the  country 
gentlemen,  so  surly  and  mutinous  in  the  season  of  his  pros- 
perity, rallied  round  him  in  a  body.  Thus,  after  murmuring 
twenty  years  at  the  misgovernment  of  Charles  the  Second, 

30  they  came  to  his  rescue  in  his  extremity  when  his  own 
secretaries  of  state  and  lords  of  the  treasury  had  deserted 
him,  and  enabled  him  to  gain  a  complete  victory  over  the 
opposition  ;  nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  they  would 
have   shown    equal  loyalty  to  his  brother  James,  if  James 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  43 

would,  even  at  the  moment,  have  refrained  from  outraging 
their  strongest  feeling.  For  there  was  one  institution,  and 
one  only,  which  they  prized  even  more  then  hereditary 
monarchy,  and  that  institution  was  the  Church  of  England. 
Their  love  of  the  Church  was  not,  indeed,  the  effect  of  study  s 
or  meditation.  Few  among  them  could  have  given  any 
reason,  drawn  from  Scripture  oi  ecclesiastical  history,  for 
adhering  to  her  doctrines,  her  ritual,  and  her  polity;  nor 
were  they,  as  a  class,  by  any  means  strict  observers  of  that 
code  of  morality  which  is  common  to  all  Christian  sects.  lo 
But  the  experience  of  many  ages  proves  that  men  may  be 
ready  to  fight  to  the  death,  and  to  persecute  without  pity, 
for  a  religion  whose  creed  they  do  not  understand  and 
whose  precepts  they  habitually  disobey. 

The  rural  clergy  were  even  more  vehement  in  Toryism  15 
than  the  rural  gentry,  and  were  a  class  scarcely  less  impor- 
tant.    It  is  to  be  observed,  however,   that  the  individual 
clergyman,  as  compared  with  the  individual  gentleman,  then 
ranked  much  lower  than  in  these  days.       The  main  support 
of  the  Church  was  derived  from  the  tithe  ;  and  the   tithe  20 
bore  to  the  rent  a    much   smaller  ratio    than   at   present. 
King    estimated   the  whole    income    of  the  parochial    and 
collegiate  clergy  at  only  four  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
pounds  a  year;   Davenant  at  only  five  hundred  and  forty- 
four  thousand  a  year.       It  is  certainly  now  more  than  seven  25 
times  as  great  as  the  larger  of  these  two  sums.     It  follows 
that  rectors  and  vicars  must  have  been,  as  compared  with 
the  neighboring  knights  and  squires,  much  poorer  in  the 
seventeenth  than  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  place  of  the  clergyman  in  society  had  been  completely  30 
changed  by  the  Reformation.     Before  that  event,  ecclesias- 
tics had  formed  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Lords,  had,  in 
wealth  and  splendor,  equaled,  and  sometimes  outshone,  the 
greatest  of   the    temporal  barons,  and   had  generally  held 


44  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

the  highest  civil  offices.  The  lord  treasurer  was  often  a 
bishop.  The  lord  chancellor  was  almost  always  so.  The 
lord  keeper  of  the  privy  seal  and  the  master  of  the  rolls 
were  ordinarily  churchmen.  Churchmen  transacted  the 
5  most  important  diplomatic  business.  Indeed,  almost  all 
that  large  portion  of  the  administration  which  rude  and  war- 
like nobles  were  incompetent  to  conduct  was  considered  as 
especially  belonging  to  divines.  Men,  therefore,  who  were 
averse  to  the  life  of  camps,  and  who  were,  at  the  same  time, 

lo  desirous  to  rise  in  the  state,  ordinarily  received  the  tonsure. 
Among  them  were  sons  of  all  the  most  illustrious  families, 
and  near  kinsmen  of  the  throne,  Scroops  and  Nevilles, 
Bourchiers,  Staffords,  and  Poles.  To  the  religious  houses 
belonged  the  rents  of  immense  domains,  and  all  that  large 

15  portion  of  the  tithe  which  is  now  in  the  hands  of  laymen. 
Down  to  the  middle  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth, 
therefore,  no  line  of  life  bore  so  inviting  an  aspect  to  ambi- 
tious and  covetous  natures  as  the  priesthood.  Then  came 
a    violent    revolution.     The   abolition    of    the    monasteries 

20  deprived  the  Church  at  once  of  the  greater  part  of  her 
wealth,  and  of  her  predominance  in  the  Upper  House  of 
parliament.  There  was  no  longer  an  abbot  of  Glaston- 
bury®^ or  an  abbot  of  Reading®^  seated  among  the  peers, 
and  possessed  of  revenues  equal  to  those  of  a  powerful  earl. 

25  The  princely  splendor  of  William  of  Wykeham®^  and  of 
William  of  Waynfiete^  had  disappeared.  The  scarlet  hat 
of  the  cardinal,  the  silver  cross  of  the  legate  were  no  more. 
The  clergy  had  also  lost  the  ascendency  which  is  the  natural 
reward  of  superior  mental  cultivation.     Once    the   circum- 

30  stance  that  a  man  could  read  had  raised  a  presumption  that 
he  was  in  orders.  But  in  an  age  which  produced  such  lay- 
men as  William  Cecil  and  Nicholas  Bacon,  Roger  Ascham 
and  Thomas  Smith,  Walter  Mildmay  and  Francis  Wal- 
singham,^^  there  was  no  reason  for  calling  away  prelates 


EArGLAND  IN  1685.  45 

from  their  dioceses  to  negotiate  treaties,  to  superintend  the 
finances,  or  to  administer  justice.  The  spiritual  character 
not  only  ceased  to  be  a  qualification  for  high  civil  office,  but 
began  to  be  regarded  as  a  disqualification.  Those  worldly 
motives,  therefore,  which  had  formerly  induced  so  many  5 
able,  aspiring,  and  high-born  youths  to  assume  the  ecclesias- 
tical habit  ceased  to  exist.  Not  one  parish  in  two  hundred 
then  afforded  what  a  man  of  family  considered  as  a  mainten- 
ance. There  were  still  indeed  prizes  in  the  Church,  but  they 
were  few;  and  even  the  highest  were  mean,  when  compared  10 
with  the  glory  which  had  once  surrounded  the  princes  of  the 
hierarchy.  The  state  kept  by  Parker  and  Grindal  **^  seemed 
beggarly  to  those  who  remembered  the  imperial  pomp  of 
Wolsey,^^  his  palaces,  which  had  become  the  favorite  abodes 
of  royalty,  Whitehall  and  Hampton  Court,  the  three  sumptu-  15 
ous  tables  daily  spread  in  his  hall,  the  forty-four  gorgeous 
copes  in  his  chapel,  his  running  footmen  in  rich  liveries,  and 
his  body-guards  with  gilded  pole  axes.  Thus  the  sacerdotal 
office  lost  its  attraction  for  the  higher  classes.  During  the 
century  which  followed  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  scarce  20 
a  single  person  of  noble  descent  took  orders.  At  the  close 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  two  sons  of  peers  were 
bishops  ;  four  or  five  sons  of  peers  were  priests,  and  held 
valuable  preferment ;  but  these  rare  exceptions  did  not  take 
away  the  reproach  which  lay  on  the  body.  The  clergy  were  25 
regarded  as,  on  the  whole,  a  plebeian  class.  And,  indeed, 
for  one  who  made  the  figure  of  a  gentleman,  ten  were  mere 
menial  servants.  A  large  proportion  of  those  divines  who 
had  no  benefices,  or  whose  benefices  were  too  small  to 
afford  a  comfortable  revenue,  lived  in  the  houses  of  laymen.  30 
It  had  long  been  evident  that  this  practice  tended  to  de- 
grade the  priestly  character.  Laud^*  had  exerted  himself 
to  effect  a  change ;  and  Charles  the  First  had  repeatedly 
issued  positive  orders  that  none  but  men  of  high  rank  should 


46  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

presume  to  keep  domestic  chaplains.  But  these  injunctions 
had  become  obsolete.  Indeed,  during  the  domination  of  the 
Puritans,  many  of  the  ejected  ministers  of  the  Church  of 
England  could  obtain  bread  and  shelter  only  by  attaching 
5  themselves  to  the  households  of  royalist  gentlemen  ;  and  the 
habits  which  had  been  formed  in  those  times  of  trouble 
continued  long  after  the  reestablishment  of  monarchy  and 
episcopacy.  In  the  mansions  of  men  of  liberal  sentiments 
and  cultivated  understandings,  the  chaplain  was  doubtless 

10  treated  with  urbanity  and  kindness.  His  conversation,  his 
literary  assistance,  his  spiritual  advice  were  considered  as  an 
ample  return  for  his  food,  his  lodging,  and  his  stipend.  But 
this  was  not  the  general  feeling  of  the  country  gentlemen. 
The  coarse   and  ignorant  squire,  who  thought  that  it  be- 

15  longed  to  his  dignity  to  have  grace  said  every  day  at  his 
table  by  an  ecclesiastic  in  full  canonicals,  found  means  to 
reconcile  dignity  with  economy.  A  young  Levite  —  such 
was  the  phrase  then  in  use  —  might  be  had  for  his  board,  a 
small  garret,  and  ten  pounds  a  year,    and  might  not  only 

20  perform  his  own  professional  functions,  might  not  only  be 
the  most  patient  of  butts  and  of  listeners,  might  not  only 
be  always  ready  in  fine  weather  for  bowls,  and  in  rainy 
weather  for  shovel-board,  but  might  also  save  the  expense 
of  a  gardener  or  of  a  groom.      Sometimes  the  reverend  man 

25  nailed  up  the  apricots,  and  sometimes  he  curried  the  coach 
horses.  He  cast  up  the  farrier's  bills.  He  walked  ten 
miles  with  a  message  or  a  parcel.  If  he  was  permitted 
to  dine  with  the  family,  he  was  expected  to  content  himself 
with  the  plainest  fare.    He  might  fill  himself  with  the  corned 

30  beef  and  the  carrots;  but  as  soon  as  the  tarts  and  cheese- 
cakes made  their  appearance,  he  quitted  his  seat,  and  stood 
aloof  till  he  was  summoned  to  return  thanks  for  the  repast, 
from  a  great  part  of  which  he  had  been  excluded. 

Perhaps  after  some  years  of  service  he  was  presented  to  a 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  47 

living  sufficient  to  support  him;  but  he  often  found  it  neces- 
sary to  purchase  his  preferment  by  a  species  of  simony, 
which  furnished  an  inexhaustible  subject  of  pleasantry  to 
three  or  four  generations  of  scoffers.  With  his  cure  he  was 
expected  to  take  a  wife.  The  wife  had  ordinarily  been  in  s 
the  patron's  service;  and  it  was  well  if  she  was  not  suspected 
of  standing  too  high  in  the  patron's  favor.  Indeed,  the 
nature  of  the  matrimonial  connections  which  the  clergymen 
of  that  age  were  in  the  habit  of  forming  is  the  most  certain 
indication  of  the  place  which  the  order  held  in  the  social  lo 
system.  An  Oxonian,  writing  a  few  months  after  the  death 
of  Charles  the  Second,  complained  bitterly,  not  only  that 
the  country  attorney  and  the  country  apothecary  looked 
down  with  disdain  on  the  country  clergyman,  but  that  one 
of  the  lessons  most  earnestly  inculcated  on  every  girl  of  15 
honorable  family  was  to  give  no  encouragement  to  a  lover 
in  orders,  and  that,  if  any  young  lady  forgot  this  precept, 
she  was  almost  as  much  disgraced  as  by  an  illicit  amour. 
Clarendon,*^  who  assuredly  bore  no  ill  will  to  the  Church, 
mentions  it  as  a  sign  of  the  confusion  of  ranks  which  the  20 
great  rebellion  had  produced,  that  some  damsels  of  noble 
families  had  bestowed  themselves  on  divines.  A  waiting 
woman  was  generally  considered  as  the  most  suitable  help- 
mate for  a  parson.  Queen  Elizabeth,  as  head  of  the  Church, 
had  given  what  seemed  to  be  a  formal  sanction  to  this  pre-  25 
judice,  by  issuing  special  orders  that  no  clergyman  should 
presume  to  marry  a  servant  girl  without  the  consent  of  her 
master  or  mistress.  During  several  generations  accordingly 
the  relation  between  priests  and  handmaidens  was  a  theme 
for  endless  jest ;  nor  would  it  be  easy  to  find,  in  the  comedy  30 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  single  instance  of  a  clergy- 
man who  wins  a  spouse  above  the  rank  of  a  cook.  Even  so 
late  as  the  time  of  George  the  Second,  the  keenest  of  all 
observers   of    life   and  manners,   himself  a  priest,  remarked 


48  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

that,  in  a  great  household,  the  chaplain  was  the  resource  of 
a  lady's  maid  whose  character  had  been  blown  upon,  and 
who  was  therefore  forced  to  give  up  hopes  of  catching  the 
steward.*'*' 
5  In  general  the  divine  who  quitted  his  chaplainship  for  a 
benefice  and  a  wife  found  that  he  had  only  exchanged  one 
class  of  vexations  for  another.  Not  one  living  in  fifty  enabled 
the  incumbent  to  bring  up  a  family  comfortably.  As  children 
multiplied  and  grew,  the  household  of  the  priest  became 

lo  more  and  more  beggarly.  Holes  appeared  more  and  more 
plainly  in  the  thatch  of  his  parsonage  and  in  his  single  cas- 
sock. Often  it  was  only  by  toiling  on  his  glebe,  by  feeding 
swine,  and  by  loading  dung-carts  that  he  could  obtain  daily 
bread;   nor   did   his   utmost   exertions    always  prevent  the 

IS  bailiffs  from  taking  his  concordance  and  his  inkstand  in 
execution.  It  was  a  white  day  on  which  he  was  admitted 
into  the  kitchen  of  a  great  house,  and  regaled  by  the 
servants  with  cold  meat  and  ale.  His  children  were 
brought  up  like  the  children  of  the  neighboring  peasantry. 

2o  His  boys  followed  the  plough,  and  his  girls  went  out  to 
service.  Study  he  found  impossible,  for  the  advowson 
of  his  living  would  hardly  have  sold  for  a  sum  suffi- 
cient to  purchase  a  good  theological  library;  and  he 
might  be  considered  as   unusually  lucky  if  he  had  ten  or 

25  twelve  dog-eared  volumes  among  the  pots  and  pans  on  his 
shelves.  Even  a  keen  and  strong  intellect  might  be  ex- 
pected to  rust  in  so  unfavorable  a  situation. 

Assuredly  there  was  at  that  time  no  lack  in  the  English 
Church  of  ministers  distinguished  by  abilities  and  learning. 

30  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  these  ministers  were  not  scat- 
tered among  the  rural  population.  They  were  brought 
together  at  a  few  places  where  the  means  of  acquiring 
knowledge  were  abundant,  and  where  the  opportunities  of 
vigorous  intellectual  exercise  were  frequent.    At  such  places 


ENGLAND  IN  16S5.  49 

were  to  be  found  divines  qualified  by  parts,  by  eloquence, 
by  wide  knowledge  of  literature,  of  science,  and  of  life,  to 
defend  their  Church  victoriously  against  heretics  and  scep- 
tics, to  command  the  attention  of  frivolous  and  worldly  con- 
gregations, to  guide  the  deliberations  of  senates,  and  to  make  5 
religion  respectable,  even  in  the  most  dissolute  of  courts. 
Some  of  them  labored  to  fathom  the  abysses  of  metaphysical 
theology;  some  were  deeply  versed  in  biblical  criticism;  and 
some  threw  light  on  the  darkest  parts  of  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory. Some  proved  themselves  consummate  masters  of  logic.  10 
Some  cultivated  rhetoric  with  such  assiduity  and  success  that 
their  discourses  are  still  justly  valued  as  models  of  style. 
These  eminent  men  were  to  be  found,  with  scarce  a  single 
exception,  at  the  universities,  at  the  great  cathedrals,  or  in 
the  capital.  Barrow  had  lately  died  at  Cambridge,  and  15 
Pearson  had  gone  thence  to  the  episcopal  bench.  Cudworth 
and  Henry  More  were  still  living  there.  South  and  Pococke, 
Jane  and  Aldrich  were  at  Oxford.  Prideaux  was  in  the 
close  of  Norwich,  and  Whitby  in  the  close  of  Salisbury.  But 
it  was  chiefly  by  the  London  clergy,  who  were  always  spoken  20 
of  as  a  class  apart,  that  the  fame  of  their  profession  for 
learning  and  eloquence  was  upheld.  The  principal  pulpits 
of  the  metropolis  were  occupied  about  this  time  by  a  crowd 
of  distinguished  men,  from  among  whom  was  selected  a  large 
proportion  of  the  rulers  of  the  Church.  Sherlock  preached  25 
at  the  Temple,  Tillotson  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  Wake  and  Jeremy 
Collier  at  Gray's  Inn,  Burnet  at  the  Rolls,  Stillingfleet  at 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  Patrick  at  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden, 
Fowler  at  St.  Giles's,  Cripplegate,  Sharp  at  St.  Giles's  in  the 
Field's,  Tennison  at  St.  Martin's,  Sprat  at  St.  Margaret's,  30 
Beveridge  at  St.  Peter's  in  Cornhill.  Of  these  twelve  men, 
all  of  high  note  in  ecclesiastical  history,  ten  became  bishops 
and  four  archbishops.  Meanwhile  almost  the  only  important 
theological  works  which  came  forth  from  a  rural  parsonage 


50  ENGLAND   IN  1686. 

were  those  of  George  Bull,  afterwards  Bishop  of  St.  David's; 
and  Bull  would  never  have  produced  those"  works  had  he 
not  inherited  an  estate,  by  the  sale  of  which  he  was  enabled 
to  collect  a  library,  such  as  probably  no  other  country  clergy- 
5  man  in  England  possessed. 

Thus  the  Anglican  priesthood  was  divided  into  two  sec- 
tions, which,  in  acquirements,  in  manners,  and  in  social 
position,  differed  widely  from  each  other.  One  section,  trained 
for  cities  and  courts,  comprised  men  familiar  with  all  ancient 

10  and  modern  learning ;  men  able  to  encounter  Hobbes  or 
Bossuet^^  at  all  the  weapons  of  controversy;  men  who  could, 
in  their  sermons,  set  forth  the  majesty  and  beauty  of  Chris- 
tianity with  such  justness  of  thought  and  such  energy  of 
language  that  the  indolent  Charles  roused  himself  to  listen, 

15  and  the  fastidious  Buckingham ^^  forgot  to  sneer;  men  whose 
address,  politeness,  and  knowledge  of  the  world  qualified 
them  to  manage  the  consciences  of  the  wealthy  and  noble; 
men  with  whom  Halifax  ^^  loved  to  discuss  the  interests  of 
empires,  and  from  whom  Dryden  was  not  ashamed  to  own 

20  that  he  had  learned  to  write.*  The  other  section  was  des- 
tined to  ryder  and  humbler  service.  It  was  dispersed  over 
the  country,  and  consisted  chiefly  of  persons  not  at  all 
wealthier,  and  not  much  more  refined,  than  small  farmers  or 
upper  servants.     Yet  it   was   in   these    rustic  priests,  who 

25  derived  but  a  scanty  subsistence  from  their  tithe  sheaves 
and  tithe  pigs,  and  who  had  not  the  smallest  chance  of  ever 
attaining  high  professional  honors,  that  the  professional 
spirit  was  strongest.  Among  those  divines  who  were  the 
boast  of  the  universities  and  the  delight  of  the  capital,  and 

30  who  had  attained,   or   might    reasonably  expect  to   attain, 

*  "  I  have  frequently  heard  him  (Dryden)  own  with  pleasure  that,  if 
he  had  any  talent  for  English  prose,  it  was  owing  to  his  having  often 
read  the  writings  of  the  great  Archbishop  Tillotson."  Congreve's 
Dedication  of  Dryden's  Plays. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  SI 

opulence  and  lordly  rank,  a  party,  respectable  in  numbers, 
and  more  respectable  in  character,  leaned  towards  constitu- 
tional principles  of  government,  lived  on  friendly  terms  with 
Presbyterians,  Independents,  and  Baptists,  would  gladly  have 
seen  a  full  toleration  granted  to  all  Protestant  sects,  and  5 
would  even  have  consented  to  make  alterations  in  the  liturgy, 
for  the  purpose  of  conciliating  honest  and  candid  Non-con- 
formists. But  such  latitudinarianism  was  held  in  horror  by 
the  country  parson.  He  was,  indeed,  prouder  of  his  ragged 
gown  than  his  superiors  of  their  lawn  and  of  their  scarlet  10 
hoods."  The  very  consciousness  that  there  was  little  in  his 
worldly  circumstances  to  distinguish  him  from  the  villagers 
to  whom  he  preached  led  him  to  hold  immoderately  high  the 
dignity  of  that  sacerdotal  ofifice  which  was  his  single  title  to 
reverence.  Having  lived  in  seclusion,  and  having  had  little  15 
opportunity  of  correcting  his  opinions  by  reading  or  con- 
versation, he  held  and  taught  the  doctrines  of  indefeasible 
hereditary  right,  of  passive  obedience,  and  of  non-resistance, 
in  all  their  crude  absurdity.  Having  been  long  engaged  in 
a  petty  war  against  the  neighboring  dissenters,  he  too  often  20 
hated  them  for  the  wrongs  which  he  had  done  them,  and 
found  no  fault  with  the  Five-Mile  Act  and  the  Conventicle 
Act,^  except  that  those  odious  laws  had  not  a  sharper  edge. 
Whatever  influence  his  office  gave  him  was  exerted  with  pas- 
sionate zeal  on  the  Tory  side;  and  that  influence  was  immense.  25 
It  would  be  a  great  error  to  imagine,  because  the  country 
rector  was  in  general  not  regarded  as  a  gentleman,  because 
he  could  not  dare  to  aspire  to  the  hand  of  one  of  the  young 
ladies  at  the  manor  house,  because  he  was  not  asked  into  the 
parlors  of  the  great,  but  was  left  to  drink  and  smoke  with  30 
grooms  and  butlers,  that  the  power  of  the  clerical  body  was 
smaller  than  at  present.  The  influence  of  a  class  is  by  no 
means  proportioned  to  the  consideration  which  the  members 
of  that  class  enjoy  in  their  individual  capacity.     A  cardinal 


52  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

is  a  much  more  exalted  personage  than  a  begging  friar;  but 
it  would  be  a  grievous  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  College 
of  Cardinals  has  exercised  a  greater  dominion  over  the 
public  mind  of  Europe  than  the  order  of  Saint  Francis. 
5  In  Ireland,  at  present,  a  peer  holds  a  far  higher  station 
in  society  than  a  Roman  Catholic  priest ;  yet  there  are  in 
Munster  and  Connaught  few  counties  where  a  combination 
of  priests  would  not  carry  an  election  against  a  combination 
of  peers.     In  the  seventeenth  century  the  pulpit  was  to  a 

lo  large  portion  of  the  population  what  the  periodical  press  now 
is.  Scarce  any  of  the  clowns  who  came  to  the  parish  church 
ever  saw  a  gazette  or  a  political  pamphlet.  Ill  informed  as 
their  spiritual  pastor  might  be,  he  was  yet  better  informed 
than   themselves ;    he  had  every  week    an    opportunity  of 

IS  haranguing  them;  and  his  harangues  were  never  answered. 
At  every  important  conjuncture,  invectives  against  the  Whigs 
and  exhortations  to  obey  the  Lord's  Anointed  resounded  at 
once  from  many  thousands  of  pulpits;  and  the  effect  was  for- 
midable indeed.    Of  all  the  causes  which,  after  the  dissolution 

2o  of  the  Oxford  parliament,  produced  the  violent  reaction 
against  the  Exclusionists,^®  the  most  potent  seems  to  have 
been  the  oratory  of  the  country  clergy. 

The  power  which  the  country  gentlemen  and  the  country 
clergymen  exercised  in  the  rural  districts  was  in  some  meas- 

25  ure  counterbalanced  by  the  power  of  the  yeomanry,  an  emi- 
nently manly  and  true-hearted  race.  The  petty  proprietors 
who  cultivated  their  own  fields  and  enjoyed  a  modest  compe- 
tence, without  affecting  to  have  scutcheons  and  crests,  or 
aspiring  to  sit  on  the  bench  of  justice,  then  formed  a  much 

30  more  important  part  of  the  nation  than  at  present.  If  we 
may  trust  the  best  statistical  writers  of  that  age,  not  less 
than  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  proprietors,  who,  with 
their  families,  must  have  made  up  more  than  a  seventh  of 
the  whole  population,  derived  their  subsistence  from  little 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  53 

freehold  estates.  The  average  income  of  these  small  land- 
owners was  estimated  at  between  sixty  and  seventy  pounds 
a  year.  It  was  computed  that  the  number  of  persons  who 
occupied  their  own  land  was  greater  than  the  number  of 
those  who  farmed  the  land  of  others.  A  large  portion  of  the  5 
yeomanry  had,  from  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  leaned 
towards  Puritanism,  had,  in  the  Civil  War,  taken  the  side 
of  the  parliament,  had,  after  the  Restoration,  persisted  in 
hearing  Presbyterian  and  Independent  preachers,  had,  at 
elections,  strenuously  supported  the  Exclusionists,  and  had  10 
continued,  even  after  the  discovery  of  the  Rye  House  Plot 
and  the  proscription  of  the  Whig  leaders,  to  regard  Popery 
and  arbitrary  power  with  unmitigated  hostility. 

Great  as  has  been  the  change  in  the  rural  life  of  England 
since  the  Revolution,  the  change  which  has  come  to  pass  in  15 
the  cities  is  still  more  amazing.  At  present  a  sixth  part  of 
the  nation  is  crowded  into  provincial  towns  of  more  than 
thirty  thousand  inhabitants.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second  no  provincial  town  in  the  kingdom  contained  thirty 
thousand  inhabitants,  and  only  four  provincial  towns  con-  20 
tained  so  many  as  ten  thousand  inhabitants. 

Next  to  the  capital,  but  next  at  an  immense  distance, 
stood  Bristol,  then  the  first  English  seaport,  and  Norwich, 
then  the  first  English  manufacturing  town.  Both  have  since 
that  time  been  far  outstripped  by  younger  rivals;  yet  both  25 
have  made  great  positive  advances.  The  population  of 
Bristol  has  quadrupled.  The  population  of  Norwich  has 
more  than  doubled. 

Pepys,  who  visited  Bristol  eight  years  after  the  Restora- 
tion, was  struck  by  the  splendor  of  the  city.  But  his  stan-  30 
dard  was  not  high  ;  for  he  noted  down  as  a  wonder  the 
circumstance  that,  in  Bristol,  a  man  might  look  round  him 
and  see  nothing  but  houses.  It  seems  that,  in  no  other 
place  with  which  he  was  acquainted,  except  London,  did 


54  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

the  buildings  completely  shut  out  the  woods  and  fields. 
Large  as  Bristol  might  then  appear,  it  occupied  but  a  very 
small  portion  of  the  area  on  which  it  now  stands.  A  few 
churches  of  eminent  beauty  rose  out  of  a  labyrinth  of 
5  narrow  lanes  built  upon  vaults  of  no  great  solidity.  If  a 
coach  or  a  cart  entered  these  alleys,  there  was  danger  that 
it  would  be  wedged  between  the  houses,  and  danger  also 
that  it  would  break  in  the  cellars.  Goods  were,  therefore, 
conveyed  about  the  town  almost  exclusively  in  trucks  drawn 

lo  by  dogs  ;  and  the  richest  inhabitant",  exhibited  their  wealth, 
not  by  riding  in  gilded  carriages,  but  by  walking  the  streets 
with  trains  of  servants  in  rich  liveries,  and  by  keeping 
tables  loaded  with  good  cheer.  The;  pomp  of  the  christen- 
ings and  burials  far  exceeded  what  was  seen  at  any  other 

15  place  in  England.  The  hospitality  of  the  city  was  widely 
renowned,  and  especially  the  collatio]is  with  which  the  sugar 
refiners  regaled  their  visitors.  The  repast  was  dressed  in 
the  furnace,  and  was  accompanied  by  a  rich  brewage  made 
of  the  best  Spanish  wine,  and  celebrated  over  the  whole 

20  kingdom  as  Bristol  milk.  This  luxury  was  supported  by  a 
thriving  trade  with  the  North  American  plantations  and 
with  the  West  Indies.  The  passion  for  colonial  traffic  was 
so  strong  that  there  was  scarce  a  small  shopkeeper  in 
Bristol  who  had  not  a  venture  on  board  of  some  ship  bound 

25  for  Virginia  or  the  Antilles.  Some  of  these  ventures  in- 
deed were  not  of  the  most  honorable  kind.  There  was,  in 
the  Transatlantic  possessions  of  the  crown,  a  great  demand 
for  labor,  and  this  demand  was  partly  supplied  by  a  system 
of  crimping  and  kidnapping  at  the  principal   English  sea- 

30  ports.®^  Nowhere  was  this  system  found  in  such  active  and 
extensive  operation  as  at  Bristol.  Even  the  first  magistrates 
of  that  city  were  not  ashamed  to  enrich  themselves  by  so 
odious  a  commerce.  The  number  of  houses  in  the  city 
appears,  from  the    returns    of   the  hearth  money,  to   have 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  55 

been,  in  the  year  1685,  just  five  thousand  three  hundred. 
We  can  hardly  suppose  the  number  of  persons  in  a  house 
to  have  been  greater  than  in  the  city  of  London;  and  in  the 
city  of  London  we  learn  from  the  best  authority  that  there 
were  then  fifty-live  persons  to  ten  houses.  The  population  of  5 
Bristol  must  therefore  have  been  twenty-nine  thousand  souls. 
Norwich  was  the  capital  of  a  large  and  fruitful  province. 
It  was  the  residence  of  a  bishop  and  of  a  chapter.  It  was 
the  chief  seat  of  the  chief  manufacture  of  the  realm.  Some 
men  distinguished  by  learning  and  science  had  recently  10 
dwelt  there,  and  no  place  in  the  kingdom,  except  the  capi- 
tal and  the  universities,  had  more  attractions  for  the  curi- 
ous. The  library,  the  museum,  the  aviary,  and  the  botani- 
cal garden  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  were  thought  by  Fellows 
of  the  Royal  Society  well  worthy  of  a  long  pilgrimage.  15 
Norwich  had  also  a  court  in  miniature.  In  the  heart  of  the 
city  stood  an  old  palace  of  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk,  said  to  be 
the  largest  town  house  in  the  kingdom  out  of  London.  In 
this  mansion,  to  which  were  annexed  a  tennis  court,  a  bowl- 
ing green,  and  a  wilderness  stretching  along  the  bank  of  the  20 
Wansum,  the  noble  family  of  Howard  frequently  resided, 
and  kept  a  state  resembling  that  of  petty  sovereigns. 
Drink  was  served  to  guests  in  goblets  of  pure  gold.  The 
very  tongs  and  shovels  were  of  silver.  Pictures  by  Italian 
masters  adorned  the  walls.  The  cabinets  were  filled  with  a  25 
fine  collection  of  gems  purchased  by  that  Earl  of  Arundel 
whose  marbles  are  now  among  the  ornaments  of  Oxford. 
Here,  in  the  year  167 1,  Charles  and  his  court  were  sumptu- 
ously entertained.  Here,  too,  all  comers  were  annually 
welcomed  from  Christmas  to  Twelfth  Night.  Ale  flowed  in  Z''^ 
oceans  for  the  populace.  Three  coaches,  one  of  which  had 
been  built  at  a  cost  of  five  hundred  pounds,  to  contain  four- 
teen persons,  were  sent  every  afternoon  round  the  city  to 
bring  ladies  to  the  festivities,  and  the  dances  were  always 


56  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

followed  by  a  luxurious  banquet.  When  the  Duke  of  Nor- 
folk came  to  Norwich,  he  was  greeted  like  a  king  returning 
to  his  capital.  The  bells  of  the  cathedral  and  of  Saint 
Peter  Mancroft  were  rung.  The  guns  of  the  castle  were 
5  fired,  and  the  mayor  and  aldermen  waited  on  their  illustri- 
ous fellow-citizen  with  complimentary  addresses.  In  the 
year  1693,  the  population  of  Norwich  was  found  by  actual 
enumeration  to  be  between  twenty-eight  and  twenty-nine 
thousand  souls. 

10  Far  below  Norwich,  but  still  high  in  dignity  and  impor- 
tance, were  some  other  ancient  capitals  of  shires.  In  that 
age  it  was  seldom  that  a  country  gentleman  went  up  with 
his  family  to  London.  The  county  town  was  his  metropolis. 
He  sometimes  made    it  his  residence   during  part  of   the 

15  year.  At  all  events,  he  was  often  attracted  thither  by  busi- 
ness and  pleasure,  by  assizes,  quarter  sessions,  elections, 
musters  of  militia,  festivals,  and  races.  There  were  the 
halls  where  the  judges,  robed  in  scarlet  and  escorted  by 
javelins  and  trumpets,  opened  the  king's  commission  twice 

20  a  year.  There  were  the  markets  at  which  the  corn,  the 
cattle,  the  wool,  and  the  hops  of  the  surrounding  country 
were  exposed  to  sale.  There  were  the  great  fairs  to  which 
merchants  came  down  from  London,  and  where  the  rural 
dealer  laid  in  his  annual  stores  of  sugar,  stationery,  cutlery, 

25  and  muslin.  There  were  the  shops  at  which  the  best  fami- 
lies of  the  neighborhood  bought  grocery  and  millinery. 
Some  of  these  places  derived  dignity  from  interesting  his- 
torical recollections,  from  cathedrals  decorated  by  all  the 
art  and  magnificence  of  the  middle  ages,  from  palaces  where 

30  a  long  succession  of  prelates  had  dwelt,  from  closes  sur- 
rounded by  the  venerable  abodes  of  deans  and  canons,  and 
from  castles  which  had  in  the  old  time  repelled  the  Nevilles 
or  De  Veres,  and  which  bore  more  recent  traces  of  the 
vengeance  of  Rupert  or  of  Cromwell. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  SI 

Conspicuous  among  these  interesting  cities  were  York, 
the  capital  of  the  north,  and  Exeter,  the  capital  of  the  west. 
Neither  can  have  contained  much  more  than  ten  thousand 
inhabitants.  Worcester,  the  queen  of  the  cider  land,  had 
about  eight  thousand ;  Nottingham  probably  as  many.  5 
Gloucester,  renowned  for  that  resolute  defence  which  had 
been  fatal  to  Charles  the  First,  had  certainly  between 
four  and  five  thousand  ;  Derby  not  quite  four  thousand. 
Shrewsbury  was  the  chief  place  of  an  extensive  and  fertile 
district.  The  court  of  the  marches  of  Wales  was  held  10 
there.  In  the  language  of  the  gentry  many  miles  round  the 
Wrekin,  to  go  to  Shrewsbury  was  to  go  to  town.  The  pro- 
vincial wits  and  beauties  imitated,  as  well  as  they  could, 
the  fashions  of  Saint  James's  Park,  in  the  walks  along  the 
side  of  the  Severn.  The  inhabitants  were  about  seven  15 
thousand. 

The  population  of  every  one  of  these  places  has,  since 
the  Revolution,  much  more  than  doubled.     The  population 
of  some  has  multiplied  sevenfold.     The  streets  have  been 
almost  entirely  rebuilt.     Slate  has  succeeded  to  thatch  and  20 
brick  to  timber.     The  pavements  and  the  lamps,  the  dis- 
play of  wealth  in  the  principal   shops,  and    the    luxurious 
neatness  of  the  dwellings  occupied  by  the  gentry  would,  in 
the   seventeeth   century,  have   seemed  miraculous.     Yet  is 
the  relative  importance  of  the  old  capitals  of  counties  by  no  25 
means  what  it  was.    Younger  towns,  towns  which  are  rarely 
or  never  mentioned  in  our  early  history,  and  which  sent  no 
representatives  to  our  early  parliaments,  have,  within   the 
memory  of  persons  still  living,  grown  to  a  greatness  which 
this  generation   contemplates  with  wonder  and   pride,  not  30 
unaccompanied  by  awe  and  anxiety. 

The  most  eminent  of  these  towns  were  indeed  known  in 
the  seventeenth  century  as  respectable  seats  of  industry. 
Nay,  their  rapid  progress  and  their  vast  opulence  were  then 


58  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

sometimes  described  in  language  which  seems  ludicrous  to  a 
man  who  has  seen  their  present  grandeur.  One  of  the 
most  populous  and  prosperous  among  them  was  Man- 
chester. It  had  been  required  by  the  Protector  to  send  one 
5  representative  to  his  parliament,  and  was  mentioned  by 
writers  of  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second  as  a  busy  and 
opulent  place.  Cotton  had,  during  half  a  century,  been 
brought  thither  from  Cyprus  and  Smyrna,  but  the  manufac- 
ture was  in  its  infancy.     Whitney  ^^  had  not  yet  taught  how 

lo  the  raw  material  might  be  furnished  in  quantities  almost 
fabulous.  Arkwright  had  not  yet  taught  how  it  might  be 
worked  up  with  a  speed  and  precision  which  seem  magical. 
The  whole  annual  import  did  not,  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth   century,    amount    to    two    millions    of    pounds,     a 

15  quantity  which  would  now  hardly  supply  the  demand  of 
forty-eight  hours.  That  wonderful  emporium,  which  in 
population  and  wealth  far  surpasses  capitals  so  much 
renowned  as  Berlin,  Madrid,  and  Lisbon,  was  then  a  mean 
and  ill-built  market  town,  containing   under  six  thousand 

20  people.  It  then  had  not  a  single  press.  It  now  supports  a 
hundred  printing  establishments.  It  then  had  not  a  single 
coach.     It  now  supports  twenty  coachmakers. 

Leeds  was  already  the  chief  seat  of  the  woolen  manufac- 
tures of  Yorkshire,  but  the  elderly  inhabitants  could  still 

25  remember  the  time  when  the  first  brick  house,  then  and 
long  after  called  the  Red  House,  was  built.  They  boasted 
loudly  of  their  increasing  wealth,  and  of  the  immense  sales 
of  cloth  which  took  place  in  the  open  air  on  the  bridge. 
Hundreds,  nay,  thousands  of  pounds  had  been  paid  down  in 

30  the  course  of  one  busy  market  day.  The  rising  importance 
of  Leeds  had  attracted  the  notice  of  successive  govern- 
ments. Charles  the  First  had  granted  municipal  privileges 
to  the  town.  Oliver  had  invited  it  to  send  one  member 
to  the  House  of  Commons.     But  from  the  returns  of  the 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  59 

hearth  money  it  seems  certain  that  the  whole  population  of 
the  borough,  an  extensive  district  which  contains  many  ham- 
lets, did  not,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  exceed 
seven  thousand  souls.  In  1841  there  were  more  than  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  5 

About  a  day's  journey  south  of  Leeds,  on  the  verge  of  a 
wild  moorland  tract,  lay  an  ancient  manor,  now  rich  with 
cultivation,  then  barren  and  unenclosed,  which  was  known 
by  the  name  of  Hallamshire.  Iron  abounded  there,  and 
from  a  very  early  period,  the  rude  whittles  ^^  fabricated  lo 
there  had  been  sold  all  over  the  kingdom.  They  had 
indeed  been  mentioned  by  Geoffrey  Chaucer  ™  in  one  of 
his  Canterbury  Tales.  But  the  manufacture  appears  to 
have  made  little  progress  during  the  three  centuries  which 
followed  his  time.  This  languor  may  perhaps  be  explained  15 
by  the  fact  that  the  trade  was,  during  almost  the  whole  of 
this  long  period,  subject  to  such  regulations  as  the  lord  and 
his  court-leet  thought  fit  to  impose.  The  more  delicate  kinds 
of  cutlery  were  either  made  in  the  capital  or  brought  from 
the  Continent.  It  was  not  indeed  till  the  reign  of  George  20 
the  First  that  the  English  surgeons  ceased  to  import  from 
France  those  exquisitely  fine  blades  which  are  required  for 
operations  on  the  human  frame.  Most  of  the  Hallamshire 
forges  were  collected  in  a  market  town  which  had  sprung 
up  near  the  castle  of  the  proprietor,  and  which,  in  the  reign  25 
of  James  the  First,  had  been  a  singularly  miserable  place, 
containing  about  two  thousand  inhabitants,  of  whom  a  third 
were  half-starved  and  half-naked  beggars.  It  seems  certain 
from  the  parochial  registers  that  the  population  did  not 
amount  to  four  thousand  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Charles  30 
the  Second.  The  effects  of  a  species  of  toil  singularly  un- 
favorable to  the  health  and  vigor  of  the  human  frame  were 
at  once  discerned  by  every  traveler.  A  large  proportion 
of  the  people  had  distorted  limbs.     That  is  that  Sheffield 


60  ENGLAND  IN  16S5. 

which  now,  with  its  dependencies,  contains  a  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  souls,  and  which  sends  forth  its  admirable 
knives,  razors,  and  lancets  to  the  farthest  ends  of  the 
world. 
5  Birmingham  had  not  been  thought  of  sufficient  importance 
to  send  a  member  to  Oliver's  parliament.  Yet  the  manufac- 
turers of  Birmingham  were  already  a  busy  and  thriving  race. 
They  boasted  that  their  hardware  was  highly  esteemed,  not 
indeed,  as  now,  at  Pekin  and  Lima,  at  Bokhara  and  Timbuc- 

lo  too,  but  in  London  and  even  as  far  off  as  Ireland.  They  had 
acquired  a  less  honorable  renown  as  coiners  of  bad  money. 
In  allusion  to  their  spurious  groats,  the  Troy  party  had  fixed 
on  demagogues  who  hypocritically  affected  zeal  against 
Popery,  the  nickname  of  Birminghams.     Yet  in  1685  the 

15  population,  which  is  now  little  less  than  two  hundred  thou- 
sand, did  not  amount  to  four  thousand.  Birmingham  buttons 
were  just  beginning  to  be  known  ;  of  Birmingham  guns 
nobody  had  yet  heard;  and  the  place  whence,  two  genera- 
tions  later,    the   magnificent  editions  of  Baskerville  went 

20  forth  to  astonish  all  the  librarians  of  Europe,  did  not  contain 
a  single  regular  shop  where  a  Bible  or  an  almanac  could  be 
bought.  On  market  days  a  bookseller  named  Michael  John- 
son, the  father  of  the  great  Samuel  Johnson,^^  came  over 
from    Lichfield,    and   opened    a   stall   during  a  few  hours. 

25  This  supply  of  literature  was  long  found  adequate  to  the 
demand. 

These  four  chief  seats  of  our  great  manufactures  deserve 
especial  mention.  It  would  be  tedious  to  enumerate  all  the 
populous   and   opulent  hives  of  industry  which,  a  hundred 

30  and  fifty  years  ago,  were  hamlets  without  a  parish  church, 
or  desolate  moors,  inhabited  only  by  grouse  and  wild  deer. 
Nor  has  the  change  been  less  signal  in  those  outlets  by 
which  the  products  of  the  English  looms  and  forges  are 
poured  forth  over  the  four  quarters  of  the  world.    At  present 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  61 

Liverpool  contains  about  three  hundred  thousand  inhabi- 
tants. The  shipping  registered  at  her  port  amounts  to 
between  four  and  five  hundred  thousand  tons.  Into  her 
custom-house  has  been  repeatedly  paid  in  one  year  a  sum 
more  than  thrice  as  great  as  the  whole  income  of  the  Eng-  s 
lish  crown  in  1685.  The  receipts  of  her  post  office,  even 
since  the  great  reduction  of  the  duty,  exceed  the  sum  which 
the  postage  of  the  whole  kingdom  yielded  to  the  Duke  of 
York.''^  Her  endless  docks  and  warehouses  are  among  the 
wonders  of  the  world.  Yet  even  those  docks  and  ware-  10 
houses  seem  hardly  to  suffice  for  the  gigantic  trade  of  the 
Mersey  ;  and  already  a  rival  city  is  growing  fast  on  the 
opposite  shore.  In  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second,  Liver- 
pool was  described  as  a  rising  town  which  had  recently  made 
great  advances,  and  which  maintained  a  profitable  inter-  15 
course  with  Ireland  and  with  the  sugar  colonies.  The 
customs  had  multiplied  eightfold  within  sixteen  years,  and 
amounted  to  what  was  then  considered  the  immense  sum 
of  fifteen  thousand  pounds  annually.  But  the  population 
can  hardly  have  exceeded  four  thousand.  The  shipping  20 
was  about  fourteen  hundred  tons,  less  than  the  tonnage  of  a 
single  modern  Indiaman  of  the  first  class ;  and  the  whole 
number  of  seamen  belonging  to  the  port  cannot  be  esti- 
mated at  more  than  two  hundred. 

Such  has  been  the  progress  of  those  towns  where  wealth  25 
is  created  and  accumulated.  Not  less  rapid  has  been  the 
progress  of  towns  of  a  very  different  kind,  towns  in  which 
wealth,  created  and  accumulated  elsewhere,  is  expended  for 
purposes  of  health  and  recreation.  Some  of  the  most  re- 
markable of  these  towns  have  sprung  into  existence  since  3^ 
the  time  of  the  Stuarts.  Cheltenham  is  now  a  greater  city 
than  any  which  the  kingdom  contained  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  London  alone  excepted.  But  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth,  Cheltenham 


62  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

was  mentioned  by  local  historians  merely  as  a  rural  parish 
lying  under  the  Cotswold  Hills,  and  affording  good  ground, 
both  for  tillage  and  pasture.  Corn  grew  and  cattle  browsed 
over  the  space  now  covered  by  that  gay  succession  of  streets 

5  and  villas.  Brighton  was  described  as  a  place  which  had 
once  been  thriving,  which  had  possessed  many  small  fishing 
barks,  and  which  had,  when  at  the  height  of  prosperity,  con- 
tained above  two  thousand  inhabitants,  but  which  was  sink- 
ing fast  into  decay.     The  sea  was  gradually  gaining  on  the 

lo  buildings,  which  at  length  almost  entirely  disappeared. 
Ninety  years  ago  the  ruins  of  an  old  fort  were  to  be  seen 
lying  among  the  pebbles  and  seaweed  on  the  beach;  and 
ancient  men  could  still  point  out  the  traces  of  foundations 
on  a  spot  where  a  street  of  more  than  a  hundred  huts  had 

15  been  swallowed  up  by  the  waves.  So  desolate  was  the  place 
after  this  calamity  that  the  vicarage  was  thought  scarcely 
worth  having.  A  few  poor  fishermen,  however,  still  continued 
to  dry  their  nets  on  those  cliffs,  on  which  now  a  town  more 
than  twice  as  large  and  populous  as  the  Bristol  of  the  Stuarts 

20  presents  mile  after  mile  its  gay  and  fantastic  front  to  the  sea. 

England,  however,  was  not,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 

destitute  of  watering  places.     The  gentry  of  Derbyshire  and 

of  the  neighboring  counties  repaired  to  Buxton,  where  they 

were  crowded  into  low  wooden  sheds,  and  regaled  with  oat- 

25  cake,  and  with  a  viand  which  the  hosts  called  mutton,  but 
which  the  guests  strongly  suspected  to  be  dog.  Tunbridge 
Wells,^^  \ymg  within  a  day's  journey  of  the  capital,  and  in 
one  of  the  richest  and  most  highly  civilized  parts  of  the  king- 
dom, had  much  greater  attractions.    At  present  we  see  there 

30  a  town  which  would,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  have 
ranked,  in  population,  fourth  or  fifth  among  the  towns  of 
England.  The  brilliancy  of  the  shops  and  the  luxury  of  the 
private  dwellings  far  surpass  anything  that  England  could 
then   show.     When  the  court,   soon   after  the  Restoration, 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  63 

visited  Tunbridge  Wells,   there   was   no  town   there ;    but, 
within  a  mile  of  the  spring,  rustic  cottages,  somewhat  cleaner 
and   neater  than  the   ordinary  cottages  of  that  time,  were 
scattered  over  the  heath.     Some  of  these  cabins  were  mov- 
able, and  were  carried  on  sledges  from  one  part  of  the  com-    5 
mon  to   another.     To  these  huts  men  of  fashion,  wearied 
with  the  din  and  smoke  of  London,  sometimes  came  in  the 
summer  to  breathe  fresh  air,  and  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  rural 
life.     During  the  season  a  kind  of  fair  was  daily  held  near 
the  fountain.      The   wives   and  daughters   of  the   Kentish  10 
farmers  came  from    the  neighboring   villages    with   cream, 
cherries,  wheat-ears,  and  quails.     To  chaffer  with  them,  to 
flirt  with  them,  to  praise  their  straw  hats  and  tight  heels  was  a 
refreshing  pastime  to  voluptuaries  sick  of  the  airs  of  actresses 
and  maids  of  honor.     Milliners,  toymen,  and  jewellers  came  15 
down  from  London  and  opened  a  bazar  under  the  trees.     In 
one  booth  the  politician  might  find  his  coffee  and  the  Lon- 
don Gazette ;  in  another  were  gamblers  playing  deep  at  bas- 
set^*; and,  on  fine  evenings,  the  fiddles  were  in  attendance, 
and  there  were  morris  dances  ^*  on  the  elastic  turf  of  the  20 
bowling  green.     In  1685  a  subscription  had  just  been  raised 
among  those  who  frequented  the  wells  for  building  a  church, 
which  the  Tories,  who  then  domineered  everywhere,  insisted 
on  dedicating  to  Saint  Charles  the  Martyr. 

But  at  the  head  of  the  English  watering  places,  without  a  25 
rival,  was  Bath.  The  springs  of  that  city  had  been  renowned 
from  the  days  of  the  Romans.  It  had  been,  during  many 
centuries,  the  seat  of  a  bishop.  The  sick  repaired  thither 
from  every  part  of  the  realm.  The  king  sometimes  held  his 
court  there.  Nevertheless,  Bath  was  then  a  maze  of  only  3^ 
four  or  five  hundred  houses,  crowded  within  an  old  wall  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  Avon.  Pictures  of  what  were  considered 
as  the  finest  of  those  houses  are  still  extant,  and  greatly 
resemble  the  lowest  rag  shops  and  pothouses  of  Radcliffe 


64  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

Highway.  Even  then,  indeed,  travelers  complained  of  the 
narrowness  and  meanness  of  the  streets.  That  beautiful  city, 
which  charms  even  eyes  familiar  with  the  masterpieces  of 
Bramante  and  Palladio,"*^  and  which  the  genius  of  Anstey  and 
5  of  Smollett,  of  Frances  Burney  and  of  Jane  Austen,"  has 
made  classic  ground,  had  not  begun  to  exist.  Milsom  Street 
itself  was  an  open  field  lying  far  beyond  the  walls;  and 
hedgerows  intersected  the  space  which  is  now  covered  by 
the  Crescent  and  the  Circus.     As  to  the  comforts  and  lux- 

lo  uries  which  were  to  be  found  in  the  interior  of  the  houses  of 
Bath  by  the  fashionable  visitors  who  resorted  thither  in  search 
of  health  or  amusement,  we  possess  information  more  com- 
plete and  minute  than  can  generally  be  obtained  on  such 
subjects.     A  writer  who  published  an  account  of  that  city 

15  about  sixty  years  after  the  Revolution  has  accurately  de- 
scribed the  changes  which  had  taken  place  within  his  own 
recollection.  He  assures  us  that  in  his  younger  days  the 
gentlemen  who  visited  the  springs  slept  in  rooms  hardly  as 
good  as  the  garrets  which  he  lived  to  see  occupied  by  foot- 

20  men.  The  floors  of  the  dining-rooms  were  uncarpeted,  and 
were  colored  brown  with  a  wash  made  of  soot  and  small 
beer,  in  order  to  hide  the  dirt.  Not  a  wainscot  was  painted. 
Not  a  hearth  or  chimney-piece  was  of  marble.  A  slab  of 
common  freestone  and  fire  irons  which  had  cost  from  three 

25  to  four  shillings  were  thought  sufficient  for  any  fireplace. 
The  best  apartments  were  hung  with  coarse  woolen  stuff, 
and  were  furnished  with  rush-bottomed  chairs.  Readers  who 
take  an  interest  in  the  progress  of  civilization  and  of  the 
useful  arts  will  be  grateful  to  the  humble  topographer  who 

30  has  recorded  these  facts,  and  will  perhaps  wish  that  histo- 
rians of  far  higher  pretensions  had  sometimes  spared  a  few 
pages  from  military  evolutions  and  political  intrigues  for  the 
purpose  of  letting  us  know  how  the  parlors  and  bedchambers 
of  our  ancestors  looked. 


ENGLAND  IN  16S5.  65 

The  position  of  London,  relatively  to  the  other  towns  of 
the  empire,  was,  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second,  far  higher 
than  at  present.  For  at  present  the  population  of  London  is 
little  more  than  six  times  the  population  of  Manchester  or  of 
Liverpool.  In  the  days  of  Charles  the  Second  the  population  5 
of  London  was  more  than  seventeen  times  the  population  of 
Bristol  or  of  Norwich.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  other 
instance  can  be  mentioned  of  a  great  kingdom  in  which  the 
first  city  was  more  than  seventeen  times  as  large  as  the 
second.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that,  in  1685,  London  10 
had  been,  during  about  half  a  century,  the  most  populous 
capital  in  Europe.  The  inhabitants,  who  are  now  at  least 
nineteen  hundred  thousand,  were  then  probably  a  little  more 
than  half  a  million.*  London  had  in  the  world  only  one 
commercial  rival,  now  long  outstripped,  the  mighty  and  15 
opulent  Amsterdam.  English  writers  boasted  of  the  forest 
of  masts  and  yard  arms  which  covered  the  river  from  the 
bridge  to  the  Tower,  and  of  the  incredible  sums  which  were 
collected  at  the  Custom-House  in  Thames  Street.  There  is, 
indeed,  no  doubt  that  the  trade  of  the  metropolis  then  bore  20 
a  far  greater  proportion  than  at  present  to  the  whole  trade 
of  the  country;  yet  to  our  generation  the  honest  vaunting  of 
our  ancestors  must  appear  almost  ludicrous.  The  shipping 
which  they  thought  incredibly  great  appears  not  to  have 
exceeded  seventy  thousand  tons.  This  was,  indeed,  then  25 
more  than  a  third  of  the  whole  tonnage  of  the  kingdom,  but 
is  now  less  than  a  fourth  of  the  tonnage  of  Newcastle,  and 
is  nearly  equaled  by  the  tonnage  of  the  steam  vessels  of  the 
Thames.  The  customs  of  London  amounted,  in  1685,  to 
about  three  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  pounds  a  year.  In  30 
our  time  the  net  duty  paid  annually,  at  the  same  place, 
exceeds  ten  millions. f 

*  According  to  King,  530,000. 

t  Macpherson's  History  of  Commerce.    Chalmers's  estimate.     Cham- 


66  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

Whoever  examines  the  maps  of  London  which  were  pub- 
lished towards  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second 
will  see  that  only  the  nucleus  of  the  present  capital  then 
existed.  The  town  did  not,  as  now,  fade  by  imperceptible 
5  degrees  into  the  country.  No  long  avenues  of  villas,  em- 
bowered in  lilacs  and  laburnums,  extended  from  the  great 
center  of  wealth  and  civilization  almost  to  the  boundaries  of 
Middlesex  and  far  into  the  heart  of  Kent  and  Surrey.  In  the 
east,  no  part  of  the  immense  line  of  warehouses  and  artificial 

10  lakes  which  now  spreads  from  the  Tower  to  Blackwall  had 
even  been  projected.  On  the  west,  scarcely  one  of  those 
stately  piles  of  building  which  are  inhabited  by  the  noble 
and  wealthy  was  in  existence ;  and  Chelsea,  which  is  now 
peopled  by  more  than  forty  thousand  human  beings,  was  a 

15  quiet  country  village  with  scarce  a  thousand  inhabitants. 
On  the  north,  cattle  fed  and  sportsmen  wandered  with  dogs 
and  guns  over  the  site  of  the  borough  of  Marylebone,  and 
over  far  the  greater  part  of  the  space  now  covered  by  the 
boroughs  of  Finsbury  and  of  the  Tower  Hamlets.     Islington 

20  was  almost  a  solitude;  and  poets  loved  to  contrast  its  silence 
and  repose  with  the  din  and  turmoil  of  the  monster  London. 
On  the  south,  the  capital  is  now  connected  with  its  suburb 
by  several  bridges,  not  inferior  in  magnificence  and  solidity 
to  the  noblest  works  of  the  Caesars.     In  1685   a  single  line 

25  of  irregular  arches,  overhung  by  piles  of  mean  and  crazy 
houses,  and  garnished  after  a  fashion  worthy  of  the  naked 
barbarians  of  Dahomy,  with  scores  of  mouldering  heads, 
impeded  the  navigation  of  the  river. 

Of  the  metropolis,  the  City,  properly  so  called,  was  the 

30  most  important  division.     At  the  time  of  the  Restoration  it 

berlayne's  State  of  England,  1684.  The  tonnage  of  the  steamers 
belonging  to  the  port  of  London  was,  at  the  end  of  1847,  about  60,000 
tons.  The  customs  of  the  port,  from  1842  to  1845,  very  nearly  averaged 
;^  1 1,000,000. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  61 

had  been  built,  for  the  most  part,  of  wood  and  plaster  ;  the 
few  bricks  that  were  used  were  ill  baked  ;  the  booths  where 
goods  were  exposed  to  sale  projected  far  into  the  streets, 
and  were  overhung  by  the  upper  stories.  A  few  specimens 
of  this  architecture  may  still  be  seen  in  those  districts  which  5 
were  not  reached  by  the  great  fire.  That  fire  had,  in  a  few 
days,  covered  a  space  of  little  less  than  a  square  mile  with 
the  ruins  of  eighty-nine  churches  and  of  thirteen  thousand 
houses.  But  the  city  had  risen  again  with  a  celerity  which 
had  excited  the  admiration  of  neighboring  countries.  Unfor-  10 
tunately,  the  old  lines  of  the  streets  had  been  to  a  great 
extent  preserved;  and  those  lines,  originally  traced  in  an  age 
when  even  princesses  performed  their  journeys  on  horseback, 
were  often  too  narrow  to  allow  wheeled  carriages  to  pass 
each  other  with  ease,  and  were  therefore  ill  adapted  for  the  15 
residence  of  wealthy  persons  in  an  age  when  a  coach  and  six 
was  a  fashionable  luxury.  The  style  of  building  was,  how- 
ever, far  superior  to  that  of  the  city  which  had  perished. 
The  ordinary  material  was  brick,  of  much  better  quality  than 
had  formerly  been  used.  On  the  sites  of  the  ancient  parish  20 
churches  had  arisen  a  multitude  of  new  domes,  towers,  and 
spires  which  bore  the  mark  of  the  fertile  genius  of  Wren. 
In  every  place  save  one  the  traces  of  the  great  devastation 
had  been  completely  effaced.  But  the  crowds  of  workmen, 
the  scaffolds,  and  the  masses  of  hewn  stone  were  still  to  be  25 
seen  where  the  noblest  of  Protestant  temples  was  slowly 
rising  on  the  ruins  of  the  old  cathedral  of  St.  Paul. 

The  whole  character  of  the  City  has,  since  that  time, 
undergone  a  complete  change.  At  present  the  bankers,  the 
merchants,  and  the  chief  shopkeepers  repair  thither  on  six  30 
mornings  of  every  week  for  the  transaction  of  business ;  but 
they  reside  in  other  quarters  of  the  metropolis,  or  at  suburban 
country-seats  surrounded  by  shrubberies  and  flower  gardens. 
This  revolution  in  private  habits  has  produced  a  political 


68  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

revolution  of  no  small  importance.  The  City  is  no  longer 
regarded  by  the  wealthiest  traders  with  that  attachment  which 
every  man  naturally  feels  for  his  home.  It  is  no  longer 
associated  in  their  minds  with  domestic  affections  and 
S  endearments.  The  fireside,  the  nursery,  the  social  table, 
the  quiet  bed  are  not  there.  Lombard  Street  and  Thread- 
needle  Street  are  merely  places  where  men  toil  and  accumu- 
late. They  go  elsewhere  to  enjoy  and  to  expend.  On  a 
Sunday  or  in  an  evening  after  the  hours  of  business,  some 

10  courts  and  alleys,  which  a  few  hours  before  had  been  alive 
with  hurrying  feet  and  anxious  faces,  are  as  silent  as  a  coun- 
try churchyard.  The  chiefs  of  the  mercantile  interest  are 
no  longer  citizens.  They  avoid,  they  almost  contemn,  munici- 
pal honors  and  duties.     Those  honors  and  duties  are  aban- 

15  doned  to  men  who,  though  useful  and  highly  respectable, 
seldom  belong  to  the  princely  commercial  houses  of  which 
the  names  are  held  in  honor  throughout  the  world. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  the  City  was  the  merchant's 
residence.    Those  mansions  of  the  great  old  burghers  which 

2o  still  exist  have  been  turned  into  counting-houses  and  ware- 
houses ;  but  it  is  evident  that  they  were  originally  not  inferior 
in  magnificence  to  the  dwellings  which  were  then  inhabited 
by  the  nobility.  They  sometimes  stand  in  retired  and  gloomy 
courts,  and  are  accessibleonly  by  inconvenient  passages;  but 

25  their  dimensions  are  ample  and  their  aspect  stately.  The 
entrances  are  decorated  with  richly  carved  pillars  and  can- 
opies. The  staircases  and  landing-places  are  not  wanting  in 
grandeur.  The  floors  are  sometimes  of  wood,  tessellated 
after  the  fashion  of    France.       The  palace   of    Sir  Robert 

30  Clayton,  in  the  Old  Jewry,  contained  a  superb  banqueting 
room  wainscoted  with  cedar  and  adorned  with  battles  of 
gods  and  giants  in  fresco.  Sir  Dudley  North  expended  four 
thousand  pounds,  a  sum  which  would  then  have  been  impor- 
tant to  a  duke,  on  the  rich  furniture  of  his  reception  rooms 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  69 

m  Basinghall  Street.  In  such  abodes,  under  the  last  Stuarts, 
the  heads  of  the  great  firms  lived  splendidly  and  hospitably. 
To  their  dwelling-place  they  were  bound  by  the  strongest 
ties  of  interest  and  affection.  There  they  had  passed  their 
youth,  had  made  their  friendships,  had  courted  their  wives,  5 
had  seen  their  children  grow  up,  had  laid  the  remains  of  their 
parents  in  the  earth,  and  expected  that  their  own  remains 
would  be  laid.  That  intense  patriotism  which  is  peculiar  to 
the  members  of  societies  congregated  within  a  narrow  space 
was,  in  such  circumstances,  strongly  developed.  London  10 
was,  to  the  Londoner,  what  Athens  was  to  the  Athenian  of 
the  age  of  Pericles,  what  Florence  was  to  the  Florentine 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  citizen  was  proud  of  the 
grandeur  of  his  city,  punctilious  about  her  claims  to  respect, 
ambitious  of  her  offices,  and  zealous  for  her  franchises.  15 

At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  the  pride 
of  the  Londoners  was  smarting  from  a  cruel  mortification. 
The  old  charter  had  been  taken  away,  and  the  magistracy 
had  been  remodelled.  All  the  civic  functionaries  were 
Tories  ;  and  the  Whigs,  though  in  numbers  and  in  wealth  20 
superior  to  their  opponents,  found  themselves  excluded  from 
every  local  dignity.  Nevertheless,  the  external  splendor  of 
the  municipal  government  was  not  diminished,  nay,  was 
rather  increased  by  this  change.  For,  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  some  Puritans  who  had  lately  borne  rule,  the  25 
ancient  fame  of  the  City  for  good  cheer  had  declined  ;  but 
under  the  new  magistrates,  who  belonged  to  a  more  festive 
party,  and  at  whose  boards  guests  of  rank  and  fashion  from 
beyond  Temple  Bar  were  often  seen,  the  Guildhall  and  the 
halls  of  the  great  companies  were  enlivened  by  many  sump-  3° 
tuous  banquets.  During  these  repasts,  odes,  composed  by 
the  poet  laureate  of  the  corporation,  in  praise  of  the  king, 
the  duke,  and  the  mayor,  were  sung  to  music.  The  drinking 
was  deep,  the  shouting  loud.     An  observant  Tory,  who  had 


70  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

often  shared  in  these  revels,  has  remarked  that  the  practice 
of  huzzaing  after  drinking  healths  dates  from  this  joyous 
period. 

The  magnificence  displayed  by  the  first  civic  magistrate 

5  was  almost  regal.  The  gilded  coach,  indeed,  which  is  now 
annually  admired  by  the  crowd,  was  not  yet  a  part  of  his 
state.  On  great  occasions  he  appeared  on  horseback,  at- 
tended by  a  long  cavalcade  inferior  in  magnificence  only  to 
that  which,  before  a  coronation,  escorted  the  sovereign  from 

lo  the  Tower  to  Westminster.  The  Lord  Mayor  was  never 
seen  in  public  without  his  rich  robe,  his  hood  of  black  velvet, 
his  gold  chain,  his  jewel,  and  a  great  attendance  of  har- 
bingers and  guards.  Nor  did  the  world  find  anything  ludi- 
crous in  the  pomp  which  constantly  surrounded  him.     For 

15  it  was  not  more  than  proportioned  to  the  place  which,  as 
wielding  the  strength  and  representing  the  dignity  of  the  city 
of  London,  he  was  entitled  to  occupy  in  the  state.  That 
city,  being  then  not  only  without  equal  in  the  country,  but 
without  second,  had,  during  five  and  forty  years,  exercised 

20  almost  as  great  an  influence  on  the  politics  of  England  as 
Paris  has,  in  our  own  time,  exercised  on  the  politics  of 
France.  In  intelligence  London  was  greatly  in  advance  of 
every  other  part  of  the  kingdom.  A  government,  supported 
and  trusted  by  London,  could  in  a  day  obtain  such  pecuniary 

25  means  as  it  would  have  taken  months  to  collect  from  the  rest 
of  the  island.  Nor  were  the  military  resources  of  the  capital 
to  be  despised.  The  power  which  the  lord  lieutenants  exer- 
cised in  other  parts  of  the  kingdom  was  in  London  intrusted 
to  a  commission  of  eminent  citizens.     Under  the  orders  of 

30  this  commission  were  twelve  regiments  of  foot  and  two  regi- 
ments of  horse.  An  army  of  drapers'  apprentices  and  jour- 
neymen tailors,  with  common  councilmen  for  captains  and 
aldermen  for  colonels,  might  not  indeed  have  been  able  to 
stand  its  ground  against  regular  troops;  but  there  were  then 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  71 

very  few  regular  troops  in  the  kingdom.  A  town,  therefore, 
which  could  send  forth,  at  an  hour's  notice,  twenty  thousand 
men,  abounding  in  natural  courage,  provided  with  tolerable 
weapons,  and  not  altogether  untinctured  with  martial  disci- 
pline, could  not  but  be  a  valuable  ally  and  a  formidable  f 
enemy.  It  was  not  forgotten  that  Hampden  and  Pym  ''^  had 
been  protected  from  lawless  tyranny  by  the  London  train- 
bands; that,  in  the  great  crisis  of  the  Civil  War,  the  London 
trainbands  had  marched  to  raise  the  siege  of  Gloucester;  or 
that,  in  the  movement  against  the  military  tyrants  which  fol-  lo 
lowed  the  downfall  of  Richard  Cromwell,™  the  London  train- 
bands had  borne  a  signal  part.  In  truth,  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that,  but  for  the  hostility  of  the  City,  Charles  the 
First  would  never  have  been  vanquished,  and  that,  without 
the  help  of  the  City,  Charles  the  Second  could  scarcely  have  15 
been  restored. 

These  considerations  may  serve  to  explain  why,  in  spite 
of  that  attraction  which  had,  during  a  long  course  of  years, 
gradually  drawn  the  aristocracy  westward,  a  few  men  of  high 
rank  had  continued,  till  a  very  recent  period,  to  dwell  in  the  -° 
vicinity  of  the  Exchange  and  of  the  Guildhall.  Shaftes- 
bury®" and  Buckingham,  while  engaged  in  bitter  and  un- 
scrupulous opposition  to  the  government,  had  thought  that 
they  could  nowhere  carry  on  their  intrigues  so  conveniently 
or  so  securely  as  under  the  protection  of  the  city  magistrates  25 
and  the  city  militia.  Shaftesbury  had  therefore  lived  in 
Aldersgate  Street,  at  a  house  which  may  still  easily  be 
known  by  pilasters  and  wreaths,  the  graceful  work  of 
Inigo.®^  Buckingham  had  ordered  his  mansion  near  Char- 
ing Cross,  once  the  abode  of  the  archbishops  of  York,  to  30 
be  pulled  down  ;  and,  while  streets  and  alleys  which  are 
still  named  after  him  were  rising  on  that  site,  chose  to 
reside  in  Dowgate. 

These,   however,  were  rare    exceptions.     Almost  all   the 


72  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

noble  families  of  England  had  long  migrated  beyond  the 
walls.  The  district  where  most  of  their  town  houses  stood 
lies  between  the  city  and  the  regions  which  are  now  con- 
sidered as  fashionable.     A  few  great  men  still  retained  their 

5  hereditary  hotels  between  the  Strand  and  the  river.  The 
stately  dwellings  on  the  south  and  west  of  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  the  Piazza  of  Covent  Garden,  Southampton  Square, 
which  is  now  called  Bloomsbury  Square,  and  King's  Square 
in   Soho  Fields,  which  is   now  called   Soho   Square,  were 

lo  among  the  favorite  spots.  Foreign  princes  were  carried  to 
see  Bloomsbury  Square  as  one  of  the  wonders  of  England. 
Soho  Square,  which  had  just  been  built,  was  to  our  ances- 
tors a  subject  of  pride  with  which  their  posterity  will  hardlj 
sympathize.     Monmouth   Square  had  been  the  name  while 

IS  the  fortunes  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  flourished,  and  on 
the  southern  side  towered  his  mansion.  The  front,  though 
ungraceful,  was  lofty  and  richly  adorned.  The  walls  of  the 
principal  apartments  were  finely  sculptured  with  fruit,  foliage, 
and  armorial  bearings,  and  were  hung  with  embroidered 

2o  satin.  Every  trace  of  this  magnificence  has  long  disap- 
peared, and  no  aristocratical  mansion  is  to  be  found  in  that 
once  aristocratical  quarter.  A  little  way  north  from  Hol- 
born,  and  on  the  verge  of  the  pastures  and  cornfields,  rose 
two  celebrated  palaces,  each  with  an  ample  garden.     One  of 

25  them,  then  called  Southampton  House  and  subsequently  Bed- 
ford House,  was  removed  about  fifty  years  ago  to  make  room 
for  a  new  city,  which  now  covers,  with  its  squares,  streets, 
and  churches,  a  vast  area,  renowned  in  the  seventeenth 
century   for   peaches  and    snipes.      The    other,   Montague 

30  House,  celebrated  for  its  frescoes  and  furniture,  was,  a  few 
months  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  burned  to  the 
ground,  and  was  speedily  succeeded  by  a  more  magnificent 
Montague  House,  which,  having  been  long  the  repository 
of  such  various  and  precious  treasures  of  art,  science,  and 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  73 

learning  as  were  scarce  ever  before  assembled  under  a  single 
roof,  has  just  given  place  to  an  edifice  more  magnificent 
still. 

Nearer   to  the  court,   on   a  space   called    Saint  James's 
Fields,  had  just  been  built  Saint  James's  Square  and  Jermyn    s 
Street.     Saint  James's  Church   had  recently  been   opened 
for  the  accommodation  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  new  quar- 
ter.    Golden  Square,  which  was  in  the  next  generation  in- 
habited by  lords  and  ministers  of  state,  had  not  yet  been 
begun.     Indeed  the  only  dwellings  to  be  seen  on  the  north  lo 
of  Piccadilly  were  three  or  four  isolated  and  almost  rural 
mansions,  of  which  the  most  celebrated  was  the  costly  pile 
erected  by  Clarendon,  and  nicknamed  Dunkirk  House.     It 
had  been  purchased  after  its  founder's  downfall  by  the  Duke 
of  Albemarle.     The  Clarendon  Hotel  and  Albemarle  Street  15 
still  preserve  the  memory  of  the  site. 

He  who  then  rambled  to  what  is  now  the  gayest  and  most 
crowded  part  of  Regent  Street  found  himself  in  a  solitude, 
and  was  sometimes  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  shot  at  a 
woodcock.*  On  the  north  the  Oxford  Road  ran  between  20 
hedges.  Three  or  four  hundred  yards  to  the  south  were 
the  garden  walls  of  a  few  great  houses,  which  were  con- 
sidered as  quite  out  of  town.  On  the  west  was  a  meadow 
renowned  for  a  spring  from  which,  long  afterwards,  Conduit 
Street  was  named.  On  the  east  was  afield  not  to  be  passed  25 
without  a  shudder  by  any  Londoner  of  that  age.  There,  as 
in  a  place  far  from  the  haunts  of  men,  had  been  dug,  twenty 
years  before,  when  the  great  plague  was  raging,  a  pit  into 
which  the  dead  carts  had  nightly  shot  corpses  by  scores. 
It  was  popularly  believed  that  the  earth  was  deeply  tainted  3a 
with  infection,  and  could  not  be  disturbed  without  imminent 
risk  to  human  life.     No  foundations  were  laid  there  till  two 

*  Old  General  Oglethorpe,  who  lived  to  1785,  used  to  boast  that  he 
had  shot  here  in  Anne's  reign. 


74  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

generations  had  passed  without  any  return  of  the  pestilence, 
and  till  the  ghastly  spot  had  long  been  surrounded  by 
buildings.* 

We  should  greatly  err  if  we  were  to  suppose  that  any  of 
5  the  streets  and  squares  then  bore  the  same  aspect  as  at 
present.  The  great  majority  of  the  houses,  indeed,  have, 
since  that  time,  been  wholly  or  in  great  part  rebuilt.  If 
the  most  fashionable  parts  of  the  capital  could  be  placed 
before  us,  such  as  they  then  were,  we  should  be  disgusted 

lo  by  their  squalid  appearance  and  poisoned  by  their  noisome 
atmosphere.  In  Covent  Garden  a  filthy  and  noisy  market 
was  held  close  to  the  dwellings  of  the  great.  Fruit  women 
screamed,  carters  fought,  cabbage  stalks  and  rotten  apples 
accumulated  in  heaps  at  the  thresholds  of  the  Countess  of 

15  Berkshire  and  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham. 

The  center  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  was  an  open  space 
where  the  rabble  congregated  every  evening,  within  a  few 
yards  of  Cardigan  House  and  Winchester  House,  to  hear 
mountebanks  harangue,  to  see  bears  dance,  and  to  set  dogs  at 

20  oxen.  Rubbish  v/as  shot  in  every  part  of  the  area.  Horses 
were  exercised  there.  The  beggars  were  as  noisy  and  im- 
portunate as  in  the  worst  governed  cities  of  the  Continent. 
A  Lincoln's  Inn  mumper  was  a  proverb.  The  whole  frater- 
nity knew  the  arms  and  liveries  of  every  charitably  disposed 

25  grandee  in  the  neighborhood,  and,  as  soon  as  his  lordship's 
coach  and  six  appeared,  came  hopping  and  crawling  in 
crowds  to  persecute  him.  These  disorders  lasted,  in  spite 
of  many  accidents  and  of  some  legal  proceedings,  till,  in  the 
reign  of  George  the  Second,  Sir  Joseph  Jekyll,  Master  of  the 

30  Rolls,  was  knocked  down  and  nearly  killed  in  the  middle  of 
the  square.  Then  at  length  palisades  were  set  up  and  a 
pleasant  garden  laid  out. 

*  The  pest  field  will  be  seen  in  maps  of  London  as  late  as  the  end 
of  George  the  First's  reign. 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  75 

Saint  James's  Square  was  a  receptacle  for  all  the  offal  and 
cinders,  for  all  the  dead  cats  and  dead  dogs  of  Westminster. 
At  one  time  a  cudgel  player  kept  the  ring  there.  At  another 
time  an  impudent  squatter  settled  himself  there,  and  built  a 
shed  for  rubbish  under  the  windows  of  the  gilded  saloons  in  5 
which  the  first  magnates  of  the  realm,  Norfolks,  Ormonds, 
Kents,  and  Pembrokes,  gave  banquets  and  balls.  It  was 
not  till  these  nuisances  had  lasted  through  a  whole  genera- 
tion and  till  much  had  been  written  about  them  that  the 
inhabitants  applied  to  parliament  for  permission  to  put  up  10 
rails  and  to  plant  trees. 

When  such  was  the  state  of  the  quarter  inhabited  by  the 
most  luxurious  portion  of  society,  we  may  easily  believe  that 
the  great  body  of  the  population  suffered  what  would  now 
be  considered  as  insupportable  grievances.     The  pavement  15 
was  detestable  ;  all  foreigners  cried  shame   upon  it.     The 
drainage  was  so  bad  that  in  rainy  weather  the  gutters  soon 
became  torrents.     Several  facetious  poets  have  commemo- 
rated the  fury  with  which  these  black  rivulets  roared  down 
Snow  Hill  and  Ludgate  Hill,  bearing  to  Fleet  Ditch  a  vast  20 
tribute   of    animal    and  vegetable    filth    from  the   stalls   of 
butchers  and  greengrocers.    This  flood  was  profusely  thrown 
to  right  and  left  by  coaches   and   carts.     To   keep   as  far 
from  the  carriage  road  as  possible  was  therefore  the  wish 
of  every  pedestrian.     The   mild  and   timid  gave   the  wall.  25 
The  bold   and  athletic   took  it.     If  two  roisters  met,  they 
cocked  their  hats  in  each  other's  faces  and  pushed  each 
other  about  till  the  weaker  was  shoved  towards  the  kennel. 
If  he  was  a  mere  bully  he  sneaked  off,  muttering  that  he 
should  find  a  time.     If  he  was  pugnacious,  the  encounter  30 
probably  ended  in  a  duel  behind  Montague  House. 

The  houses  were  not  numbered.  There  would  indeed 
have  been  little  advantage  in  numbering  them ;  for  of  the 
coachmen,  chairmen,  porters,  and  errand  boys  of  London,  a 


76  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

very  small  portion  could  read.  It  was  necessary  to  use 
marks  which  the  most  ignorant  could  understand.  The 
shops  were  therefore  distinguished  by  painted  signs,  which 
gave  a  gay  and  grotesque  aspect  to  the  streets.  The  walk 
5  from  Charing  Cross  to  Whitechapel  lay  through  an  endless 
succession  of  Saracen's  Heads,  Royal  Oaks,  Blue  Bears,  and 
Golden  Lambs,  which  disappeared  when  they  were  no  longer 
required  for  the  direction  of  the  common  people. 

When  the  evening  closed  in,  the  difficulty  and  danger  of 

lo  walking  about  London  became  serious  indeed.  The  garret 
windows  were  opened,  and  pails  were  emptied,  with  little 
regard  to  those  who  were  passing  below.  Falls,  bruises,  and 
broken  bones  were  of  constant  occurrence.  For,  till  the  last 
year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  most  of  the  streets 

15  were  left  in  profound  darkness.  Thieves  and  robbers  plied 
their  trade  with  impunity  ;  yet  they  were  hardly  so  terrible 
to  peaceable  citizens  as  another  class  of  ruffians.  It  was  a 
favorite  amusement  of  dissolute  young  gentlemen  to  swagger 
by   night    about   the    town,    breaking   windows,    upsetting 

30  sedans,  beating  quiet  men,  and  offering  rude  caresses  to 
pretty  women.  Several  dynasties  of  these  tyrants  had,  since 
the  Restoration,  domineered  over  the  streets.  The  Muns 
and  Tityre  Tus  had  given  place  to  the  Hectors,  and  the 
Hectors  had  been  recently  succeeded  by  the  Scourers.     At 

25  a  later  period  arose  the  Nicker,  the  Hawcubite,  and  the  yet 
more  dreaded  name  of  Mohawk.*    The  machinery  for  keep- 

*  It  may  be  suspected  that  some  of  the  Tityre  Tus,  like  good  Cava- 
liers, broke  Milton's  windows  shortly  after  the  Restoration.     I  am  con- 
fident that  he  was  thinking  of  those  pests  of  London  when  he  dictated 
30  the  noble  lines,  — 

"And  in  luxurious  cities,  when  the  noise 
Of  riot  ascends  above  their  loftiest  towers, 
And  injury  and  outrage,  and  when  night 
Darkens  the  streets,  then  wander  forth  the  sons 
35  Of  Belial,  flown  with  insolence  and  wine." 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  Tf 

ing  the  peace  was  utterly  contemptible.  There  was  an  act 
of  Common  Council  which  provided  that  more  than  a  thou- 
sand watchmen  should  be  constantly  on  the  alert  in  the  city, 
from  sunset  to  sunrise,  and  that  every  inhabitant  should  take 
his  turn  of  duty.  But  the  act  was  negligently  executed.  5 
Few  of  those  who  were  summoned  left  their  homes  ;  and 
those  few  generally  found  it  more  agreeable  to  tipple  in  ale- 
houses than  to  pace  the  streets. 

It  ought  to  be  noticed  that,  in  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  began  a  great  change  in  the  police  10 
of  London, —  a  change  which  has  perhaps  added  as  much  to 
the  happiness  of  the  great  body  of  the  people  as  revolutions 
of  much  greater  fame.  An  ingenious  projector,  named 
Edward  Heming,  obtained  letters  patent  conveying  to  him, 
for  a  term  of  years,  the  exclusive  right  of  lighting  up  London.  15 
He  undertook,  for  a  moderate  consideration,  to  place  a  light 
before  every  tenth  door,  on  moonless  nights,  from  Michael- 
mas to  Lady  Day,  and  from  six  to  twelve  of  the  clock. 
Those  who  now  see  the  capital  all  the  year  round,  from  dusk 
to  dawn,  blazing  with  a  splendor  compared  with  which  the  20 
illuminations  for  La  Hogue  and  Blenheim  would  have  looked 
pale,  may  perhaps  smile  to  think  of  Heming's  lanterns,  which 
glimmered  feebly  before  one  house  in  ten  during  a  small 
part  of  one  night  in  three.  But  such  was  not  the  feeling 
of  his  contemporaries.  His  scheme  was  enthusiastically  25 
applauded  and  furiously  attacked.  The  friends  of  improve- 
ment extolled  him  as  the  greatest  of  all  the  benefactors  of 
his  city.  What,  they  asked,  were  the  boasted  inventions 
of  Archimedes  when  compared  with  the  achievement  of  the 
man  who  had  turned  the  nocturnal  shades  into  noonday?  30 
In  spite  of  these  eloquent  eulogies,  the  cause  of  darkness 
was  not  left  undefended.  There  were  fools  in  that  age  who 
opposed  the  introduction  of  what  was  called  the  new  light 
as  strenuously  as  fools  in  our  age  have  opposed  the  intro- 


78  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

duction  of  vaccination  and  railroads,  as  strenuously  as  the 
fools  of  an  age  anterior  to  the  dawn  of  history  doubtless 
opposed  the  introduction  of  the  plough  and  of  alphabetical 
writing.     Many  years  after  the   date   of   Heming's  patent, 

5  there  were  extensive  districts  in  which  no  lamp  was  seen. 
We  may  easily  imagine  what,  in  such  times,  must  have 
been  the  state  of  the  quarters  peopled  by  the  outcasts  of 
society.     Among  those  quarters  one  had  attained  a  scandal- 
ous   preeminence.     On    the    confines   of   the   city  and   the 

lo  Temple  had  been  founded,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  a 
House  of  Carmelite  Friars,  distinguished  by  their  white 
hoods.  The  precinct  of  this  house  had,  before  the  Refor- 
mation, been  a  sanctuary  for  criminals,  and  still  retained  the 
privilege  of  protecting  debtors  from  arrest.     Insolvents  con- 

15  sequently  were  to  be  found  in  every  dwelling,  from  cellar  to 
garret.  Of  these  a  large  proportion  were  knaves  and  liber- 
tines, and  were  followed  to  their  asylum  by  women  more 
abandoned  than  themselves.  The  civil  power  was  unable  to 
keep  order  in  a  district  swarming  with   such  inhabitants ; 

20  and  thus  Whitefriars  became  the  favorite  resort  of  all  who 
wished  to  be  emancipated  from  the  restraints  of  the  law. 
Though  the  immunities  legally  belonging  to  the  place  ex- 
tended only  to  cases  of  debt,  cheats,  false  witnesses,  forgers, 
and  highwaymen  found  refuge  there.     For  amidst  a  rabble 

25  so  desperate  no  peace  officer's  life  was  in  safety.  At  the 
cry  of  "  Rescue,"  bullies  with  swords  and  cudgels  and  ter- 
magant hags  with  spits  and  broomsticks  poured  forth  by 
hundreds  ;  and  the  intruder  was  fortunate  if  he  escaped 
back  into  Fleet  Street,  hustled,  stripped,  and  pumped  upon. 

30  Even  the  warrant  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  England  could  not 
be  executed  without  the  help  of  a  company  of  musketeers. 
Such  relics  of  the  barbarism  of  the  darkest  ages  were  to  be 
found  within  a  short  walk  of  the  chambers  where  Somers  ^* 
was  studying  history  and  law,  of  the  chapel  where  Tillot 


ENGLAND   IN  1G85.  79 

son^  was  preaching,  of  the  coffee-house  where  Dryden^was 
passing  judgment  on  poems  and  plays,  and  of  the  hall  where 
the  Royal  Society  was  examining  the  astronomical  system 
of  Isaac  Newton.^ 

Each  of  the  two  cities  which  made  up  the  capital  of  Eng-    5 
land  had  its  own  center  of  attraction.     In  the  metropolis 
of  commerce  the  point  of  convergence  was  the  Exchange; 
in  the  metropolis  of  fashion  the  Palace.    But  the  Palace  did 
not  retain    its    influence    so  long  as  the    Exchange.     The 
revolution  completely  altered  the  relations  between  the  court  lo 
and  the  higher  classes  of  society.     It  was  by  degrees  dis- 
covered that  the  king,  in  his  individual  capacity,  had  very 
little  to  give ;  that  coronets  and  garters,  bishoprics,  and  em- 
bassies,   lordships  of    the    treasury,  and  tellerships  of    the 
Exchequer,  nay,  even  charges  in  the  royal  stud   and  bed-  15 
chamber,  were  really  bestowed,  not  by  the  king,  but  by  his 
advisers.    Every  ambitious  and  covetous  man  perceived  that 
he  would  consult  his  own  interest  far  better  by  acquiring 
the  dominion  of  a  Cornish  borough,  and  by  rendering  good 
service  to  the  ministry  during  a  critical  session,  than  by  be-  20 
coming  the  companion  or  even  the  minion  of  his  prince.     It 
was  therefore  in  the  antechambers,  not  of  George  the  First 
and  of  George  the  Second,  but  of  Walpole  and  of  Pelham, 
that  the  daily  crowd  of  courtiers  was  to  be  found.^     It  is 
also  to  be   remarked  that  the  same  revolution  which  made  25 
it  impossible  that  our  kings  should  use  the  patronage  of  the 
state,  merely  for  the    purpose  of   gratifying  their  personal 
predilections,  gave  us  several  kings  unfitted  by  their  educa- 
tion and  habits  to  be  gracious  and  affable  hosts.      They  had 
been   born  and  bred  on  the   Continent.     They  never  felt  3° 
themselves  at  home  in  our  island.     If  they  spoke  our  lan- 
guage they  spoke  it  inelegantly  and  with  effort.    Our  national 
character  they  never  fully  understood.     Our  national  man- 
ners they  hardly  attempted  to  acquire.     The  most  important 


80  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

part  of  their  duty  they  performed  better  than  any  ruler  who 
had  preceded  them,  for  they  governed  strictly  according  to 
law ;  but  they  could  not  be  the  first  gentlemen  of  the  realm, 
the  heads  of  polite  society.     If  ever  they  unbent  it  was  in  a 

5  very  small  circle,  where  hardly  an  English  face  was  to  be 
seen  ;  and  they  were  never  so  happy  as  when  they  could 
escape  for  a  summer  to  their  native  land.  They  had  indeed 
their  days  of  reception  for  our  nobility  and  gentry  ;  but  the 
reception  was  mere  matter  of  form,  and  became  at  last  as 

10  solemn  a  ceremony  as  a  funeral. 

Not  such  was  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second.  White- 
hall, when  he  dwelt  there,  was  the  focus  of  political  intrigue 
and  of  fashionable  gayety.  Half  the  jobbing  and  half  the 
flirting  of  the  metropolis  went  on  under  his  roof.     Whoever 

15  could  make  himself  agreeable  to  the  prince  or  could  secure 
the  good  offices  of  the  mistress  might  hope  to  rise  in  the 
world  without  rendering  any  service  to  the  government,  with- 
out being  even  known  by  sight  to  any  minister  of  state. 
This  courtier  got  a  frigate,  and  that  a  company;  a  third,  the 

20  pardon  of  a  rich  offender;  a  fourth,  a  lease  of  crown  land 
on  easy  terms.  If  the  king  notified  his  pleasure  that  a  brief- 
less lawyer  should  be  made  a  judge  or  that  a  libertine  bar- 
onet should  be  made  a  peer,  the  gravest  councillors,  after 
a  little  murmuring,  submitted.     Interest,  therefore,  drew  a 

25  constant  press  of  suitors  to  the  gates  of  the  palace,  and 
those  gates  always  stood  wide.  The  king  kept  open  house 
every  day,  and  all  day  long,  for  the  good  society  of  London, 
the  extreme  Whigs  only  excepted.  Hardly  any  gentleman 
had  any  difficulty  in  making  his  way  to  the  royal  presence. 

30  The  levee  was  exactly  what  the  word  imports.  Some  men 
of  quality  came  every  morning  to  stand  round  their  master, 
to  chat  with  him  while  his  wig  was  combed  and  his  cravat 
tied,  and  to  accompany  him  in  his  early  walk  through  the 
park.    All  persons  who  had  been  properly  introduced  might, 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  81 

without  any  special  invitation,  go  to  see  him  dine,  sup,  dance, 
and  play  at  hazard,  and  might  have  the  pleasure  of  hearing 
him  tell  stories,  which,  indeed,  he  told  remarkably  well, 
about  his  flight  from  Worcester,^^  and  about  the  misery 
which  he  had  endured  when  he  was  a  state  prisoner  in  the  5 
hands  of  the  canting,  meddling  preachers  of  Scotland.  By- 
standers whom  his  majesty  recognized  often  came  in  for  a 
courteous  word.  This  proved  a  far  more  successful  king- 
craft than  any  that  his  father  or  grandfather  had  practised. 
It  was  not  easy  for  the  most  austere  republican  of  the  school  10 
of  Marvel^  to  resist  the  fascination  of  so  much  good  humor 
and  affability ;  and  many  a  veteran  Cavalier,  in  whose  heart 
the  remembrance  of  unrequited  sacrifices  and  services  had 
been  festering  during  a  quarter  of  a  century,  was  compen- 
sated in  one  moment  for  wounds  and  sequestrations  by  his  15 
sovereign's  kind  nod,  and  "  God  bless  you,  my  old  friend  !  " 
Whitehall  naturally  became  the  chief  staple  of  news. 
Whenever  there  was  a  rumor  that  anything  important  had 
happened  or  was  about  to  happen,  people  hastened  thither 
to  obtain  intelligence  from  the  fountain  head.  The  galleries  20 
presented  the  appearance  of  a  modern  clubroom  at  an 
anxious  time.  They  were  full  of  people  inquiring  whether 
the  Dutch  mail  was  in,  what  tidings  the  express  from  France 
had  brought,  whether  John  Sobiesky  had  beaten  the  Turks, 
whether  the  Doge  of  Genoa  was  really  at  Paris.  These  were  25 
matters  about  which  it  was  safe  to  talk  aloud.  But  there 
were  subjects  concerning  which  information  was  asked  and 
given  in  whispers.  Had  Halifax  got  the  better  of  Roches- 
ter ?  *^  Was  there  to  be  a  parliament  ?  Was  the  Duke  of 
York  really  going  to  Scotland  ?  Had  Monmouth  *  really  30 
been  sent  for  to  the  Hague  ?  Men  tried  to  read  the  counte- 
nance of  every  minister  as  he  went  through  the  throng  to 
and  from  the  royal  closet.  All  sorts  of  auguries  were  drawn 
from  the  tone  in  which  his  majesty  spoke  to  the  Lord  Presi- 


82  ENGLAND  IN  1686. 

dent,  or  from  the  laugh  with  which  his  majesty  honored  a 
jest  of  the  Lord  Privy  Seal ;  and,  in  a  few  hours,  the  hopes 
and  fears  inspired  by  such  slight  indications  had  spread  to 
all  the  coffee-houses  from  St.  James's  to  the  Tower. 

S  The  coffee-house  must  not  be  dismissed  with  a  cursory 
mention.  It  might  indeed,  at  that  time,  have  been  not 
improperly  called  a  most  important  political  institution.  No 
parliament  had  sate  for  years.  The  municipal  council  of  the 
city  had  ceased  to  speak  the  sense  of  the  citizens.     Public 

10  meetings,  harangues,  resolutions,  and  the  rest  of  the  modern 
machinery  of  agitation  had  not  yet  come  into  fashion. 
Nothing  resembling  the  modern  newspaper  existed.  In  such 
circumstances,  the  coffee-houses  were  the  chief  organs 
through  which  the  public  opinion  of  the  metropolis  vented 

15  itself. 

The  first  of  these  establishments  had  been  set  up,  in  the 
time  of  the  Commonwealth,  by  a  Turkey  merchant,  who  had 
acquired  among  the  Mahometans  a  taste  for  their  favorite 
beverage.     The  convenience  of  being  able  to  make  appoint- 

20  ments  in  any  part  of  the  town,  and  of  being  able  to  pass 
evenings  socially  at  a  very  small  charge,  was  so  great  that 
the  fashion  spread  fast.  Every  man  of  the  upper  or  middle 
class  went  daily  to  his  coffee-house  to  learn  the  news  and  to 
discuss  it.     Every  coffee-house  had  one  or  more  orators  to 

25  whose  eloquence  the  crowd  listened  with  admiration,  and 
who  soon  became,  what  the  journalists  of  our  own  time  have 
been  called,  a  fourth  estate  of  the  realm.  The  court  had 
long  seen  with  uneasiness  the  growth  of  this  new  power  in 
the   state.      An   attempt  had  been   made,   during   Danby's 

30  administration,  to  close  the  coffee-houses.  But  men  of  all 
parties  missed  their  usual  places  of  resort  so  much  that  there 
was  a  universal  outcry.  The  government  did  not  venture,  in 
opposition  to  a  feeling  so  strong  and  general,  to  enforce  a 
regulation  of  which  the  legality  might  well  be  questioned. 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  S3 

Since  that  time  ten  years  had  elapsed,  and,  during  those 
years,  the  number  and  influence  of  the  coffee-houses  had 
been  constantly  increasing.  Foreigners  remarked  that  the 
coffee-house  was  that  which  especially  distinguished  London 
from  all  other  cities ;  that  the  coffee-house  was  the  Londoner's  s 
home,  and  that  those  who  wished  to  find  a  gentleman  com- 
monly asked,  not  whether  he  lived  in  Fleet  Street  or  Chan- 
cery Lane,  but  whether  he  frequented  the  Grecian  or  the 
Rainbow.  Nobody  was  excluded  from  these  places  who  laid 
down  his  penny  at  the  bar.  Yet  every  rank  and  profession  lo 
and  every  shade  of  religious  and  political  opinion  had  its 
own  headquarters.  There  were  houses  near  St.  James's 
Park  where  fops  congregated,  their  heads  and  shoulders 
covered  with  black  or  flaxen  wigs,  not  less  ample  than  those 
which  are  now  worn  by  the  chancellor  and  by  the  speaker  15 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  wig  came  from  Paris,  and 
so  did  the  rest  of  the  fine  gentleman's  ornaments,  his  embroid- 
ered coat,  his  fringed  gloves,  and  the  tassel  which  upheld 
his  pantaloons.  The  conversation  was  in  that  dialect  which, 
long  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  spoken  in  fashionable  circles,  20 
continued,  in  the  mouth  of  Lord  Foppington,^^  to  excite  the 
mirth  of  theatres.  The  atmosphere  was  like  that  of  a  per- 
fumer's shop.  Tobacco  in  any  other  form  than  that  of  richly 
scented  snuff  was  held  in  abomination.  If  any  clown,  igno- 
rant of  the  usages  of  the  house,  called  for  a  pipe,  the  sneers  25 
of  the  whole  assembly  and  the  short  answers  of  the  waiters 
soon  convinced  him  that  he  had  better  go  somewhere  else. 
Nor,  indeed,  would  he  have  had  far  to  go.  For,  in  general, 
the  coffee-rooms  reeked  with  tobacco  like  a  guard  room  ; 
and  strangers  sometimes  expressed  their  surprise  that  so  3° 
many  people  should  leave  their  own  firesides  to  sit  in  the 
midst  of  eternal  fog  and  stench.  Nowhere  was  the  smoking 
more  constant  than  at  Will's.  That  celebrated  house,  situ- 
ated between  Covent  Garden  and  Bow  Street,  was  sacred  to 


84  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

polite  letters.  There  the  talk  was  about  poetical  justice  and 
the  unities  of  place  and  time.  There  was  a  faction  for 
Perrault^^  and  the  moderns,  a  faction  for  Boileau^^  and  the 
ancients.  One  group  debated  whether  Paradise  Lost  ought 
5  not  to  have  been  in  rhyme.  To  another  an  envious  poetaster 
demonstrated  that  Venice  Preserved^  ought  to  have  been 
hooted  from  the  stage.  Under  no  roof  was  a  greater  variety 
of  figures  to  be  seen,  —  earls  in  stars  and  garters,  clergymen 
in  cassocks  and  bands,  pert  templars,  sheepish  lads  from  the 

10  universities,  translators  and  index-makers  in  ragged  coats  of 
frieze.  The  great  press  was  to  get  near  the  chair  where 
John  Dryden  sate.  In  winter,  that  chair  was  always  in  the 
warmest  nook  by  the  fire;  in  summer,  it  stood  in  the  balcony. 
To  bow  to  him,  and  to  hear  his  opinion  of  Racine's  last 

15  tragedy  or  of  Bossu's  ^^  treatise  on  epic  poetry,  was  thought 
a  privilege.  A  pinch  from  his  snuff-box  was  an  honor  suf- 
ficient to  turn  the  head  of  a  young  enthusiast.  There  were 
coffee-houses  where  the  first  medical  men  might  be  consulted. 
Doctor  John  Radcliffe,  who,  in  the  year  1685,  rose  to  the 

20  largest  practice  in  London,  came  daily,  at  the  hour  when  the 
Exchange  was  full,  from  his  house  in  Bow  Street,  then  a 
fashionable  part  of  the  capital,  to  Garraway's,  and  was  to  be 
found  surrounded  by  surgeons  and  apothecaries  at  a  particu- 
lar table.     There  were  Puritan  coffee-houses  where  no  oath 

25  was  heard,  and  where  lank-haired  men  discussed  election 
and  reprobation  through  their  noses ;  Jew  coffee-houses 
where  dark-eyed  money-changers  from  Venice  and  Amster- 
dam greeted  each  other;  and  Popish  coffee-houses  where, 
as  good   Protestants  believed,   Jesuits  planned,  over  their 

30  cups,  another  great  fire,  and  cast  silver  bullets  to  shoot  the 
king. 

These  gregarious  habits  had  no  small  share  in  forming 
the  character  of  the  Londoner  of  that  age.  He  was,  indeed, 
a  different  being  from  the  rustic  Englishman.     There  was 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  85 

not  then  the  intercourse  which  now  exists  between  the  two 
classes.  Only  very  great  men  were  in  the  habit  of  dividing 
the  year  between  town  and  country.  Few  esquires  came  to 
the  capital  thrice  in  their  lives.  Nor  was  it  yet  the  practice 
of  all  citizens  in  easy  circumstances  to  breathe  the  fresh  air  s 
of  the  fields  and  woods  during  some  weeks  of  every  summer. 
A  cockney,  in  a  rural  village,  was  stared  at  as  much  as  if  he 
had  intruded  into  a  Kraal  of  Hottentots.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  the  lord  of  a  Lincolnshire  or  Shropshire  manor 
appeared  in  Fleet  Street,  he  was  as  easily  distinguished  lo 
from  the  resident  population  as  a  Turk  or  a  Lascar.  His 
dress,  his  gait,  his  accent,  the  manner  in  which  he  stared  at 
the  shops,  stumbled  into  the  gutters,  ran  against  the  porters, 
and  stood  under  the  waterspouts  marked  him  out  as  an  ex- 
cellent subject  for  the  operations  of  swindlers  and  banterers.  'S 
Bullies  jostled  him  into  the  kennel.  Hackney  coachmen 
splashed  him  from  head  to  foot.  Thieves  explored  with 
perfect  security  the  huge  pockets  of  his  horseman's  coat, 
while  he  stood  entranced  by  the  splendor  of  the  Lord 
Mayor's  show.  Money-droppers,  sore  from  the  cart's  tail,  20 
introduced  themselves  to  him,  and  appeared  to  him  the 
most  honest,  friendly  gentlemen  that  he  had  ever  seen. 
Painted  women,  the  refuse  of  Lewkner  Lane  and  Whetstone 
Park,  passed  themselves  on  him  for  countesses  and  maids  of 
honor.  If  he  asked  his  way  to  St.  James's,  his  informants  25 
sent  him  to  Mile  End.  If  he  went  into  a  shop,  he  was 
instantly  discerned  to  be  a  fit  purchaser  of  everything  that 
nobody  else  would  buy,  of  second-hand  embroidery,  copper 
rings,  and  watches  that  would  not  go.  If  he  rambled  into 
any  fashionable  coffee-house,  he  became  a  mark  for  the  inso-  30 
lent  derision  of  fops  and  the  grave  waggery  of  templars. 
Enraged  and  mortified,  he  soon  returned  to  his  mansion, 
and  there,  in  the  homage  of  his  tenants  and  the  conversa- 
tion of  his  boon  companions,  found  consolation  for  the  vexa- 


86  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

tions  and  humiliations  which  he  had  undergone.  There  he 
once  more  felt  himself  a  great  man  ;  and  he  saw  nothing 
above  him  except  when  at  the  assizes  he  took  his  seat  on 
the  bench  near  the  judge  or  when  at  the  muster  of  the 
5  militia  he  saluted  the  lord  lieutenant. 

The  chief  cause  which  made  the  fusion  of  the  different 
elements  of  society  so  imperfect  was  the  extreme  difficulty 
which  our  ancestors  found  in  passing  from  place  to  place. 
Of  all  inventions,  the  alphabet  and  the  printing-press  alone 

10  excepted,  those  inventions  which  abridge  distance  have  done 
most  for  the  civilization  of  our  species.  Every  improvement 
of  the  means  of  locomotion  benefits  mankind  morally  and 
intellectually  as  well  as  materially,  and  not  only  facilitates 
the  interchange  of  the  various  productions  of  nature  and 

15  art,  but  tends  to  remove  national  and  provincial  antipathies, 
and  to  bind  together  all  the  branches  of  the  great  human 
family.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  inhabitants  of  Lon- 
don were,  for  almost  every  practical  purpose,  further  from 
Reading  than  they  now  are  from  Edinburgh,  and  further 

20  from  Edinburgh  than  they  now  are  from  Vienna. 

The  subjects  of  Charles  the  Second  were  not,  it  is  true, 
quite  unacquainted  with  that  principle  which  has,  in  our 
own  time,  produced  an  unprecedented  revolution  in  human 
affairs,  which  has  enabled  navies  to  advance  in  the  face  of 

25  wind  and  tide,  and  battalions,  attended  by  all  their  baggage 
and  artillery,  to  traverse  kingdoms  at  a  pace  equal  to  that 
of  the  fleetest  race  horse.  The  Marquess  of  Worcester  had 
recently  observed  the  expansive  power  of  moisture  rarefied 
by  heat.     After  many  experiments  he  had  succeeded  in  con- 

30  structing  a  rude  steam  engine,  which  he  called  a  fire  water 
work,  and  which  he  pronounced  to  be  an  admirable  and 
most  forcible  instrument  of  propulsion.  But  the  marquess 
was  suspected  to  be  a  madman  and  known  to  be  a  Papist. 
His   inventions,   therefore,   found    no    favorable    reception. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  87 

His  fire  water  work  might,  perhaps,  furnish  matter  for  con- 
versation at  a  meeting  of  the  Royal  Society,  but  was  not 
applied  to  any  practical  purpose.  There  were  no  railways, 
except  a  few  made  of  timber,  from  the  mouths  of  the  North- 
umbrian coal  pits  to  the  banks  of  the  Tyne.  There  was  5 
very  little  internal  communication  by  water.  A  few  attempts 
had  been  made  to  deepen  and  embank  the  natural  streams, 
but  with  slender  success.  Hardly  a  single  navigable  canal 
had  been  even  projected.  The  English  of  that  day  were  in 
the  habit  of  talking  with  mingled  admiration  and  despair  of  10 
the  immense  trench  by  which  Louis  the  Fourteenth  had 
made  a  junction  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterra- 
nean. They  little  thought  that  their  country  would,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  generations,  be  intersected,  at  the  cost  of 
private  adventures,  by  artificial  rivers  making  up  more  than  15 
four  times  the  length  of  the  Thames,  the  Severn,  and  the 
Trent  together. 

It  was  by  the  highways  that  both  travelers  and  goods  gen- 
erally passed  from  place  to  place.  And  those  highways  ap- 
pear to  have  been  far  worse  than  might  have  been  expected  20 
from  the  degree  of  wealth  and  civilization  which  the  nation 
had  even  then  attained.  On  the  best  lines  of  communica- 
tion the  ruts  were  deep,  the  descents  precipitous,  and  the 
way  often  such  as  it  was  hardly  possible  to  distinguish,  in 
the  dusk,  from  the  unenclosed  heath  and  fen  which  lay  on  25 
both  sides.  Ralph  Thoresby,  the  antiquary,  was  in  danger 
of  losing  his  way  on  the  great  North  Road,  between  Barnby 
Moor  and  Tuxford,  and  actually  lost  it  between  Doncaster 
and  York,  Pepys  and  his  wife,  traveling  in  their  own  coach, 
lost  their  way  between  Newbury  and  Reading.  In  the  30 
course  of  the  same  tour  they  lost  their  way  near  Salisbury, 
and  were  in  danger  of  having  to  pass  the  night  on  the  plain. 
It  was  only  in  fine  weather  that  the  whole  breadth  of  the 
road  was  available  for  wheeled  vehicles.     Often  the  mud 


88  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

lay  deep  on  the  right  and  the  left,  and  only  a  narrow  track 
of  firm  ground  rose  above  the  quagmire.  At  such  times 
obstructions  and  quarrels  were  frequent,  and  the  path  was 
sometimes  blocked  up  during  a  long  time  by  carriers,  neither 

5  of  whom  would  break  the  way.  It  happened  almost  every 
day  that  coaches  stuck  fast  until  a  team  of  cattle  could  be 
procured  from  some  neighboring  farm  to  tug  them  out  of 
the  slough.  But  in  bad  seasons  the  traveler  had  to  en- 
counter inconveniences  still  more  serious.     Thoresby,  who 

lo  was  in  the  habit  of  traveling  between  Leeds  and  the  capital, 
has  recorded,  in  his  Diary,  such  a  series  of  perils  and  disas- 
ters as  might  suffice  for  a  journey  to  the  Frozen  Ocean  or 
to  the  Desert  of  Sahara.  On  one  occasion  he  learned  that 
the  floods  were  out  between  Ware  and  London,  that  passen- 

15  gers  had  to  swim  for  their  lives,  and  that  a  higgler  had 
perished  in  the  attempt  to  cross.  In  consequence  of  these 
tidings  he  turned  out  of  the  high  road  and  was  conducted 
across  some  meadows,  where  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
ride  to  the  saddle  skirts  in  water.     In  the  course  of  another 

20  journey  he  narrowly  escaped  being  swept  away  by  an  inun- 
dation of  the  Trent.  He  was  afterwards  detained  at  Stam- 
ford four  days  on  account  of  the  state  of  the  roads,  and 
then  ventured  to  proceed  only  because  fourteen  members  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  who  were  going  up  in  a  body  to 

25  parliament  with  guides  and  numerous  attendants,  took  him 
into  their  company.  On  the  roads  of  Derbyshire  travelers 
were  in  constant  fear  for  their  necks,  and  were  frequently 
compelled  to  alight  and  lead  their  beasts.  The  great  route 
through  Wales  to   Holyhead  was  in   such  a  state  that,  in 

30  1685,  a  viceroy,  on  his  road  to  Ireland,  was  five  hours  in 
traveling  fourteen  miles,  from  Saint  Asaph  to  Conway. 
Between  Conway  and  Beaumaris  he  was  forced  to  walk  a 
great  part  of  the  way,  and  his  lady  was  carried  in  a  litter. 
His  coach  was,  with  great  difficulty  and  by  the  help  of 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  89 

many  hands,  brought  after  him  entire.  In  general,  car- 
riages were  taken  to  pieces  at  Conway  and  borne,  on  the 
shoulders  of  stout  Welsh  peasants,  to  the  Menai  Straits. 
In  some  parts  of  Kent  and  Sussex  none  but  the  strongest 
horses  could,  in  winter,  get  through  the  bog,  in  which,  at  5 
every  step,  they  sank  deep.  The  markets  were  often  inac- 
cessible during  several  months.  It  is  said  that  the  fruits  of 
the  earth  were  sometimes  suffered  to  rot  in  one  place,  while 
in  another  place,  distant  only  a  few  miles,  the  supply  fell 
far  short  of  the  demand.  The  wheeled  carriages  were,  in  10 
this  district,  generally  pulled  by  oxen.  When  Prince  George 
of  Denmark  visited  the  stately  mansion  of  Petworth  in  wet 
weather,  he  was  six  hours  in  going  nine  miles  ;  and  it  was 
necessary  that  a  body  of  sturdy  hinds  should  be  on  each 
side  of  his  coach  in  order  to  prop  it.  Of  the  carriages  15 
which  conveyed  his  retinue  several  were  upset  and  injured. 
A  letter  from  one  of  his  gentlemen  in  waiting  has  been  pre- 
served, in  which  the  unfortunate  courtier  complains  that, 
during  fourteen  hours,  he  never  once  alighted,  except  when 
his  coach  was  overturned  or  stuck  fast  in  the  mud.  20 

One  chief  cause  of  the  badness  of  the  roads  seems  to  have 
been  the  defective  state  of  the  law.  Every  parish  was  bound 
to  repair  the  highways  which  passed  through  it.  The  peas- 
antry were  forced  to  give  their  gratuitous  labor  six  days  in 
the  year.  If  this  was  not  sufficient  hired  labor  was  employed,  25 
and  the  expense  was  met  by  a  parochial  rate.  That  a  route 
connecting  two  great  towns,  which  have  a  large  and  thriving 
trade  with  each  other,  should  be  maintained  at  the  cost  of 
the  rural  population  scattered  between  them  is  obviously 
unjust;  and  this  injustice  was  peculiarly  glaring  in  the  case  30 
of  the  great  North  Road,  which  traversed  very  poor  and 
thinly  inhabited  districts,  and  joined  very  rich  and  populous 
districts.  Indeed  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  parishes  of 
Huntingdonshire  to  mend  a  highway  worn  by  the  constant 


90  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

passing  and  repassing  of  traffic  between  the  West  Riding  of 
Yorkshire  and  London.  Soon  after  the  Restoration  this 
grievance  attracted  the  notice  of  parliament;  and  an  act,  the 
first  of  our  many  turnpike  acts,  was  passed,  imposing  a  small 
5  toll  on  travelers  and  goods,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  some 
parts  of  this  important  line  of  communication  in  good  repair. 
This  innovation,  however,  excited  many  murmurs,  and  the 
other  great  avenues  to  the  capital  were  long  left  under  the 
old  system.     A  change  was  at  length  effected,  but  not  with- 

10  out  great  difficulty.  For  unjust  and  absurd  taxation  to  which 
men  are  accustomed  is  often  borne  far  more  willingly  than 
the  most  reasonable  impost  which  is  new.  It  was  not  till 
many  toll  bars  had  been  violently  pulled  down,  till  the  troops 
had  in  many  districts  been  forced  to  act  against  the  people, 

15  and  till  much  blood  had  been  shed  that  a  good  system  was 
introduced.  By  slow  degrees  reason  triumphed  over  preju- 
dice; and  our  island  is  now  crossed  in  every  direction  by 
near  thirty  thousand  miles  of  turnpike  road. 

On  the  best  highways  heavy  articles  were,  in  the  time  of 

20  Charles  the  Second,  generally  conveyed  from  place  to  place 
by  stage  wagons.  In  the  straw  of  these  vehicles  nestled  a 
crowd  of  passengers,  who  could  not  afford  to  travel  by  coach 
or  on  horseback,  and  who  were  prevented  by  infirmity  or  by 
the  weight  of  their  luggage  from  going  on  foot.     The  expense 

25  of  transmitting  heavy  goods  in  this  way  was  enormous. 
From  London  to  Birmingham  the  charge  was  seven  pounds 
a  ton;  from  London  to  Exeter  twelve  pounds  a  ton.  This 
was  about  fifteen  pence  a  ton  for  every  mile,  more  by  a  third 
than  was  afterwards  charged  on  turnpike  roads,  and  fifteen 

30  times  what  is  now  demanded  by  railway  companies.  The 
cost  of  conveyance  amounted  to  a  prohibitory  tax  on  many 
useful  articles.  Coal  in  particular  was  never  seen  ex- 
cept in  the  districts  where  it  was  produced  or  in  the 
districts    to    which    it   could   be   carried   by   sea,    and   was 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  91 

indeed    always    known    in    the    south    of    England    by    the 
name  of  sea  coal. 

On  byroads,  and  generally  throughout  the  country  north 
of  York  and  west  of  Exeter,  goods  were  carried  by  long 
trains  of  pack-horses.  These  strong  and  patient  beasts,  the  5 
breed  of  which  is  now  extinct,  were  attended  by  a  class  of 
men  who  seem  to  have  borne  much  resemblance  to  the 
Spanish  muleteers.  A  traveler  of  humble  condition  often 
found  it  convenient  to  perform  a  journey  mounted  on  a  pack- 
saddle  between  two  baskets,  under  the  care  of  these  hardy  10 
guides.  The  expense  of  this  mode  of  conveyance  was  small. 
But  the  caravan  moved  at  a  foot's  pace,  and  in  winter  the 
cold  was  often  insupportable. 

The  rich  commonly  traveled  in  their  own  carriages,  with 
at  least  four  horses.    Cotton,  the  facetious  poet,  attempted  to  15 
go  from  London  to  the  Peak  with  a  single  pair,  but  found  at 
St.  Alban's  that  the  journey  \vould  be  insupportably  tedious, 
and  altered  his  plan.     A  coach  and  six  is  in  our  time  never 
seen,  except  as  part  of  some  pageant.    The  frequent  mention, 
therefore,  of  such  equipages  in  old  books  is  likely  to  mislead  20 
us.     We  attribute  to  magnificence  what  was  really  the  effect 
of  a  very  disagreeable  necessity.     People,  in   the  time   of 
Charles  the  Second,  traveled  with  six  horses,  because  with  a 
smaller  number  there  was  great  danger  of  sticking  fast  in  the 
mire.    Nor  were  even  six  horses  always  sufficient.    Vanbrugh,  25 
in  the  succeeding  generation,  described  wdth  great  humor  the 
way  in  which  a  country  gentleman,  newly  chosen  a  member 
of  parliament,  went  up  to  London.    On  that  occasion  all  the 
exertions  of  six  beasts,  two  of  which  had  been  taken  from 
the  plough,   could  not  save  the  family  coach  from  being  3° 
imbedded  in  a  quagmire. 

Public  carriages  had  recently  been  much  improved.  Dur- 
ing the  years  which  immediately  followed  the  Restoration,  a 
diligence  ran  between  London  and  Oxford  in  two  days.    The 


92  ENGLAND  IN  1€S5. 

passengers  slept  at  Beaconsfield  At  length,  in  the  spring  of 
1669,  a  great  and  daring  innovation  was  attempted.  It  was 
announced  that  a  vehicle,  described  as  the  Flying  Coach, 
would  perform  the  whole  journey  between  sunrise  and  sun- 
5  set.  This  spirited  undertaking  was  solemnly  considered  and 
sanctioned  by  the  Heads  of  the  University,  and  appears  to 
have  excited  the  same  sort  of  interest  which  is  excited  in  our 
own  time  by  the  opening  of  a  new  railway.  The  Vice-Chan- 
cellor,  by  a  notice  which  was  affixed  in  all  public  places, 

10  prescribed  the  hour  and  place  of  departure.  The  success  of 
the  experiment  was  complete.  At  six  in  the  morning  the 
carriage  began  to  move  from  before  the  ancient  front  of  All 
Soul's  College,  and  at  seven  in  the  evening  the  adventurous 
gentlemen  who  had  run  the  first  risk  were  safely  deposited 

1 5  at  their  inn  in  London.  The  emulation  of  the  sister  univer- 
sity was  moved,  and  soon  a  diligence  was  set  up  which  in 
one  day  carried  passengers  from  Cambridge  to  the  capital. 
At  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  flying  car- 
riages ran  thrice  a  week  from  London  to  all  the  chief  towns. 

20  But  no  stage  coach,  indeed  no  stage  wagon,  appears  to  have 
proceeded  farther  north  than  York  or  farther  west  than 
Exeter.  The  ordinary  day's  journey  of  a  flying  coach  was 
about  fifty  miles  in  the  summer;  but  in  winter,  when  the 
ways  were  bad  and  the  nights  long,  little  more  than  thirty. 

25  The  Chester  coach,  the  York  coach,  and  the  Exeter  coach 
generally  reached  London  in  four  days  during  the  fine 
season,  but  at  Christmas  not  till  the  sixth  day.  The  pas- 
sengers, six  in  number,  were  all  seated  in  the  carriage.  For 
accidents  were  so  frequent  that  it  would  have  been  most 

30  perilous  to  mount  the  roof.  The  ordinary  fare  was  about 
twopence  halfpenny  a  mile  in  simamer,  and  somewhat  more 
in  winter. 

This  mode  of  traveling,  which  by  Englishmen  of  the  pres- 
ent day  would  be  regarded  as  insufferably  slow,  seemed  to 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  93 

our  ancestors  wonderfully  and  indeed  alarmingly  rapid.  In 
a  work  published  a  few  months  before  the  death  of  Charles 
the  Second,  the  flying  coaches  are  extolled  as  far  superior  to 
any  similar  vehicles  ever  known  in  the  world.  Their  velocity 
is  the  subject  of  special  commendation,  and  is  triumphantly  5 
contrasted  with  the  sluggish  pace  of  the  continental  posts. 
But  with  boasts  like  these  was  mingled  the  sound  of  com- 
plaint and  invective.  The  interests  of  large  classes  had  been 
unfavorably  affected  by  the  establishment  of  the  new  dili- 
gences; and,  as  usual,  many  persons  were,  from  mere  stupidity  10 
and  obstinacy,  disposed  to  clamor  against  the  innovation, 
simply  because  it  was  an  innovation.  It  was  vehemently 
argued  that  this  mode  of  conveyance  would  be  fatal  to  the 
breed  of  horses  and  to  the  noble  art  of  horsemanship;  that 
the  Thames,  which  had  long  been  an  important  nursery  of  15 
seamen,  would  cease  to  be  the  chief  thoroughfare  from  Lon- 
don up  to  Windsor  and  down  to  Gravesend;  that  saddlers 
and  spurriers  would  be  ruined  by  hundreds;  that  numerous 
inns,  at  which  mounted  travelers  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
stopping,  would  be  deserted,  and  would  no  longer  pay  any  20 
rent;  that  the  new  carriages  were  too  hot  in  summer  and  too 
cold  in  winter;  that  the  passengers  were  greviously  annoyed 
by  invalids  and  crying  children;  that  the  coach  sometimes 
reached  the  inn  so  late  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  supper, 
and  sometimes  started  so  early  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  25 
breakfast.  On  these  grounds  it  was  gravely  recommended 
that  no  public  carriage  should  be  permitted  to  have  more 
than  four  horses,  to  start  oftener  than  once  a  week,  or  to  go 
more  than  thirty  miles  a  day.  It  was  hoped  that,  if  this 
regulation  were  adopted,  all  except  the  sick  and  the  lame  30 
would  return  to  the  old  modes  of  traveling.  Petitions  em- 
bodying such  opinions  as  these  were  presented  to  the  king 
in  council  from  several  companies  of  the  city  of  London, 
from  several  provincial    towns,   and    from    the    justices   of 


94  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

several  counties.  We  smile  at  these  things.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  our  descendants,  when  they  read  the  history 
of  the  opposition  offered  by  cupidity  and  prejudice  to  the 
improvements  of  the  nineteenth  century,  may  smile  in  their 
5  turn. 

In  spite  of  the  attractions  of  the  flying  coaches,  it  was 
still  usual  for  men  who  enjoyed  health  and  vigor,  and  who 
were  not  encumbered  by  much  baggage,  to  perform  long 
journeys  on  horseback.       If    the  traveler  wished  to  move 

lo  expeditiously  he  rode  post.  Fresh  saddle  horses  and  guides 
were  to  be  procured  at  convenient  distances  along  all  the 
great  lines  of  road.  The  charge  was  threepence  a  mile  for 
each  horse  and  fourpence  a  stage  for  the  guide.  In  this 
manner,  when  the  ways  were  good,  it  was  possible  to  travel, 

15  for  a  considerable  time,  as  rapidly  as  by  any  conveyance 
known  in  England,  till  vehicles  were  propelled  by  steam. 
There  were  as  yet  no  post  chaises ;  nor  could  those  who 
rode  in  their  own  coaches  ordinarily  procure  a  change  of 
horses.     The  king,  however,  and  the  great  officers  of  state 

20  were  able  to  command  relays.  Thus  Charles  commonly 
went  in  one  day  from  Whitehall  to  Newmarket,  a  distance  of 
about  fifty-five  miles  through  a  level  country ;  and  this  was 
thought  by  his  subjects  a  proof  of  great  activity.  Evelyn 
performed  the  same  journey  in  company  with  Lord  Treasurer 

25  Cliiford.  The  coach  was  drawn  by  six  horses,  which  were 
changed  at  Bishop  Stortford  and  again  at  Chesterford.  The 
travelers  reached  Newmarket  by  night.  Such  a  mode  of 
conveyance  seems  to  have  been  considered  as  a  rare  luxury 
confined  to  princes  and  ministers. 

30  Whatever  might  be  the  way  in  which  a  journey  was  per- 
formed, the  travelers,  unless  they  were  numerous  and  well 
armed,  ran  considerable  risk  of  being  stopped  and  plundered. 
The  mounted  highwayman,  a  marauder  known  to  our  gener- 
ation only  from  books,  was  to  be  found  on  every  main  road. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  95 

The  waste  tracts  which  lie  on  the  great  routes  near  London 
were  especially  haunted  by  plunderers  of  this  class.  Houn- 
slow  Heath,  on  thegreat  Western  Road,  and  Finchley  Common, 
on  the  great  Northern  Road,  were  perhaps  the  most  cele- 
brated of  these  spots.  The  Cambridge  scholars  trembled  5 
when  they  approached  Epping  Forest,  even  in  broad  day- 
light. Seamen  who  had  just  been  paid  off  at  Chatham  were 
often  compelled  to  deliver  their  purses  on  Gadshill,  cele- 
brated near  a  hundred  years  earlier  by  the  greatest  of  poets 
as  the  scene  of  the  depredations  of  Poins  and  Falstaff.*  10 
The  public  authorities  seem  to  have  been  often  at  a  loss  how 
to  deal  with  these  enterprising  plunderers.  At  one  time  it 
was  announced  in  the  Gazette  that  several  persons,  who 
were  strongly  suspected  of  being  highwaymen,  but  against 
whom  there  was  not  sufficient  evidence,  would  be  paraded  15 
at  Newgate  in  riding  dresses;  their  horses  would  also  be 
shown;  and  all  gentlemen  who  had  been  robbed  were  invited 
to  inspect  this  singular  exhibition.  On  another  occasion  a 
pardon  was  publicly  offered  to  a  robber  if  he  would  give  up 
some  rough  diamonds  of  immense  value  which  he  had  taken  20 
when  he  stopped  the  Harwich  mail.  A  short  time  after 
appeared  another  proclamation,  warning  the  innkeepers  that 
the  eye  of  the  government  was  upon  them.  Their  criminal 
connivance,  it  was  affirmed,  enabled  banditti  to  infest  the 
roads  with  impunity.  That  these  suspicions  were  not  with-  25 
out  foundation  is  proved  by  the  dying  speeches  of  some 
penitent  robbers  of  that  age,  who  appear  to  have  received 
from  the  innkeepers  services  much  resembling  those  which 
Farquhar's  Boniface  rendered  to  Gibbet.®" 

It  was  necessary  to  the  success  and  even  to  the  safety  of  30 
the  highwayman  that  he  should  be  a  bold  and  skillful  rider, 
and  that  his  manners  and  appearance   should  be   such   as 
suited  the  master  of  a  fine  horse.      He  therefore  held   an 
aristocratical  position  in  the  community  of  thieves,  appeared 


96  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

at  fashionable  coffee-houses  and  gaming-houses,  and  betted 
with  men  of  quaUty  on  the  race-ground.*  Sometimes,  in- 
deed, he  was  a  man  of  good  family  and  education.  A 
romantic  interest,  therefore,  attached,  and  perhaps  still 
5  attaches,  to  the  names  of  freebooters  of  this  class.  The 
vulgar  eagerly  drank  in  tales  of  their  ferocity  and  audacity, 
of  their  occasional  acts  of  generosity  and  good-nature,  of 
their  amours,  of  their  miraculous  escapes,  of  their  desperate 
struggles,  and  of  their  manly  bearing  at  the  bar  and  in  the 

10  cart.  Thus  it  was  related  of  William  Nevison,  the  great 
robber  of  Yorkshire,  that  he  levied  a  quarterly  tribute  on  all 
the  northern  drovers,  and  in  return,  not  only  spared  them 
himself,  but  protected  them  against  all  other  thieves  ;  that 
he  demanded  purses  in  the  most  courteous  manner ;  that  he 

15  gave  largely  to  the  poor  what  he  had  taken  from  the  rich  ; 
that  his  life  was  once  spared  by  the  royal  clemency,  but 
that  he  again  tempted  his  fate,  and  at  length  died,  in  1685, 
on  the  gallows  of  York.f  It  was  related  how  Claude  Duval, 
the  French  page  of  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  took  to  the  road, 

20  became  captain  of  a  formidable  gang,  and  had  the  honor  to 
be  named  first  in  a  royal  proclamation  against  notorious 
offenders  ;  how  at  the  head  of  his  troop  he  stopped  a  lady's 
coach,  in  which  there  was  a  booty  of  four  hundred  pounds ; 
how  he  took  only  one  hundred  and  suffered  the  fair  owner 

25  to  ransom  the  rest  by  dancing  a  coranto  with  him  on  the 

*  Aimwell.    Pray,  sir,  han't  I  seen  your  face  at  Will's  coffee-house  ? 
Gibbet.    Yes,  sir,  and  at  White's  too.       Beaux^  Stratagem. 
t  Gent's  History  of  York.     Another  marauder  of  the  same  descrip- 
tion, named  Biss,  was  hanged  at  Salisbury  in  1695.      In  a  ballad  which 
30  is  in  the  Pepysian  Library,  he  is  represented  as  defending  himself  thus 
before  the  judge  :  — 

"  What  say  you  now,  my  honored  Lord  ? 
What  harm  was  there  in  this  ? 
Rich,  wealthy  misers  were  abhorred 
35  By  brave,  freehearted  Biss." 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  f>/ 

heath  ;  how  his  vivacious  gallantry  stole  away  the  hearts 
of  all  women  ;  how  his  dexterity  at  sword  and  pistol  made 
him  a  terror  to  all  men ;  how  at  length,  in  the  year  1670,  he 
was  seized  when  overcome  by  wine  ;  how  dames  of  high 
rank  visited  him  in  prison,  and  with  tears  interceded  for  his  5 
life  ;  how  the  king  would  have  granted  a  pardon  but  for 
the  interference  of  Judge  Morton,  the  terror  of  highwaymen, 
who  threatened  to  resign  his  office  unless  the  law  were 
carried  into  full  effect;  and  how,  after  the  execution,  the 
corpse  lay  in  state  with  all  the  pomp  of  scutcheons,  wax  10 
lights,  black  hangings,  and  mutes,  till  the  same  cruel  judge 
who  had  intercepted  the  mercy  of  the  crown  sent  officers  to 
disturb  the  obsequies.  In  these  anecdotes  there  is  doubt- 
less a  large  mixture  of  fable ;  but  they  are  not  on  that 
account  unworthy  of  being  recorded,  for  it  is  both  an  15 
authentic  and  an  important  fact  that  such  tales,  whether 
false  or  true,  were  heard  by  our  ancestors  with  eagerness 
and  faith. 

All  the  various  dangers  by  which  the  traveler  was  beset 
were  greatly  increased  by  darkness.  He  was  therefore  com-  20 
monly  desirous  of  having  the  shelter  of  a  roof  during  the 
night,  and  such  shelter  it  was  not  difficult  to  obtain.  From 
a  very  early  period  the  inns  of  England  had  been  renowned. 
Our  first  great  poet  had  described  the  excellent  accommoda- 
tion which  they  afforded  to  the  pilgrims  of  the  fourteenth  25 
century.  Nine  and  twenty  persons,  with  their  horses,  found 
room  in  the  wide  chambers  and  stables  of  the  Tabard  in 
Southwark.^"^  The  food  was  of  the  best,  and  the  wines  such 
as  drew  the  company  on  to  drink  largely.  Two  hundred 
years  later,  under  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  William  Harrison  30 
gave  a  lively  description  of  the  plenty  and  comfort  of  the 
great  hostelries.  The  continent  of  Europe,  he  said,  could 
show  nothing  like  them.  There  were  some  in  which  two  or 
three  hundred  people,  with  their  horses,  could  without  diffi- 


98  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

culty  be  lodged  and  fed.  The  bedding,  the  tapestry,  above 
all,  the  abundance  of  clean  and  fine  linen  was  matter  of 
wonder.  Valuable  plate  was  often  set  on  the  tables.  Nay, 
there  were  signs  which  had  cost  thirty  or  forty  pounds.  In 
5  the  seventeenth  century  England  abounded  with  excellent 
inns  of  every  rank.  The  traveler  sometimes,  in  a  small 
village,  lighted  on  a  public  house  such  as  Walton  has  de- 
scribed, where  the  brick  floor  was  swept  clean,  where  the 
walls  were  stuck  round  with  ballads,  where  the  sheets  smelt 

10  of  lavender,  and  where  a  blazing  fire,  a  cup  of  good  ale,  and 
a  dish  of  trouts  fresh  from  the  neighboring  brook  were  to  be 
procured  at  small  charge.  At  the  larger  houses  of  entertain- 
ment were  to  be  found  beds  hung  with  silk,  choice  cookery, 
and  claret  equal  to  the  best  which  was  drunk  in  London. 

15  The  innkeepers  too,  it  was  said,  were  not  like  other  inn- 
keepers. On  the  Continent  the  landlord  was  the  tyrant  of 
those  who  crossed  the  threshold.  In  England  he  was  a 
servant.  Never  was  an  Englishman  more  at  home  than 
when  he  took  his  ease  in  his  inn.    Even  men  of  fortune,  who 

20  might  in  their  own  mansions  have  enjoyed  every  luxury, 
were  often  in  the  habit  of  passing  their  evenings  in  the 
parlor  of  some  neighboring  house  of  public  entertainment. 
They  seem  to  have  thought  that  comfort  and  freedom  could 
in  no  other  place  be  enjoyed  in  equal  perfection.     This 

25  feeling  continued  during  many  generations  to  be  a  national 
peculiarity.  The  liberty  and  jollity  of  inns  long  furnished 
matter  to  our  novelists  and  dramatists.  Johnson  declared 
that  a  tavern  chair  was  the  throne  of  human  felicity ;  and 
Shenstone^^  gently  complained  that  no  private  roof,  however 

30  friendly,  gave  the  wanderer  so  warm  a  welcome  as  that 
which  was  to  be  found  at  an  inn. 

Many  conveniences,  which  were  unknown  at  Hampton 
Court  and  Whitehall  in  the  seventeenth  century,  are  to  be 
found  in  our  modern  hotels.     Yet  on  the  whole  it  is  certain 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  99 

that  the  improvement  of  our  houses  of  public  entertainment 
has  by  no  means  kept  pace  with  the  improvement  of  our 
roads  and  of  our  conveyances.  Nor  is  this  strange  ;  for  it  is 
evident  that,  all  other  circumstances  being  supposed  equal, 
the  inns  will  be  best  where  the  means  of  locomotion  are  .5 
worst.  The  quicker  the  rate  of  traveling,  the  less  important 
is  it  that  there  should  be  numerous  agreeable  resting-places 
for  the  traveler.  A  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  a  person 
who  came  up  to  the  capital  from  a  remote  county  generally 
required  twelve  or  fifteen  meals  and  lodging  for  five  or  six  10 
nights  by  the  way.  If  he  were  a  great  man,  he  expected 
the  meals  and  lodging  to  be  comfortable  and  even  luxurious. 
At  present,  we  fly  from  York  or  Chester  to  London  by  the 
light  of  a  single  winter's  day.  At  present,  therefore,  a  trav- 
eler seldom  interrupts  his  journey  merely  for  the  sake  of  15 
rest  and  refreshment.  The  consequence  is  that  hundreds  of 
excellent  inns  have  fallen  into  utter  decay.  In  a  short  time, 
no  good  houses  of  that  description  will  be  found,  except  at 
places  where  strangers  are  likely  to  be  detained  by  business 
or  pleasure.  20 

The  mode  in  which  correspondence  was  carried  on  be- 
tween distant  places  may  excite  the  scorn  of  the  present 
generation;  yet  it  was  such  as  might  have  moved  the  admira- 
tion and  envy  of  the  polished  nations  of  antiquity  or  of  the 
contemporaries  of  Raleigh  and  Cecil.  A  rude  and  imperfect  25 
establishment  of  posts  for  the  conveyance  of  letters  had  been 
set  up  by  Charles  the  First,  and  had  been  swept  away  by 
the  Civil  War.  Under  the  Commonwealth  the  design  was 
resumed.  At  the  Restoration  the  proceeds  of  the  post  office, 
after  all  expenses  had  been  paid,  were  settled  on  the  Duke  30 
of  York.  On  most  lines  of  road  the  mails  went  out  and 
came  in  only  on  the  alternate  days.  In  Cornwall,  in  the  fens 
of  Lincolnshire,  and  among  the  hills  and  lakes  of  Cumber- 
land, letters  were  received  only  once  a  week.    During  a  royal 


100  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

progress  a  daily  post  was  despatched  from  the  capital  to 
the  place  where  the  court  sojourned.  There  was  also  daily 
communication  between  London  and  the  Downs ;  and  the 
same  privilege  was  sometimes  extended  to  Tunbridge  Wells 
5  and  Bath  at  the  seasons  when  those  places  were  crowded  by 
the  great.  The  bags  were  carried  on  horseback  day  and 
night,  at  the  rate  of  about  five  miles  an  hour. 

The  revenue  of  this  establishment  was  not  derived  solely 
from  the  charge  for  the  transmission  of  letters.     The  post 

lo  office  alone  was  entitled  to  furnish  post  horses;  and  from  the 
care  with  which  this  monopoly  was  guarded,  we  may  infer 
that  it  was  found  profitable.  If,  indeed,  a  traveler  had 
waited  half  an  hour  without  being  supplied,  he  might  hire  a 
horse  wherever  he  could. 

15  To  facilitate  correspondence  between  one  part  of  London 
and  another  was  not  originally  one  of  the  objects  of  the  post 
ofiice.  But  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  an  enterpris- 
ing citizen  of  London,  William  Dockwray,  set  up,  at  great 
expense,  a  penny  post,  which  delivered  letters  and  parcels 

20  six  or  eight  times  a  day  in  the  busy  and  crowded  streets 
near  the  Exchange,  and  four  times  a  day  in  the  outskirts  of 
the  capital.  This  improvement  was,  as  usual,  strenuously 
resisted.  The  porters  complained  that  their  interests  were 
attacked,  and  tore  down  the  placards  in  which  the  scheme 

25  was  announced  to  the  public.  The  excitement  caused  by 
Godfrey's  death  and  by  the  discovery  of  Coleman's  papers  ^^ 
was  then  at  the  height.  A  cry  was  therefore  raised  that  the 
penny  post  was  a  Popish  contrivance.  The  great  Doctor 
Gates, ^^°  it  was   affirmed,  had   hinted  a  suspicion  that  the 

30  Jesuits  were  at  the  bottom  of  the  scheme,  and  that  the  bags, 
if  examined,  would  be  found  full  of  treason.  The  utility  of 
the  enterprise  was,  however,  so  great  and  obvious  that  all 
opposition  proved  fruitless.  As  soon  as  it  became  clear  that 
the  speculation  would  be  lucrative,  the  Duke  of  York  com- 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  101 

plained  of  it  as  an  infraction  of  his  monopoly,  and  the  courts 
of  law  decided  in  his  favor. 

The  revenue  of  the  post  office  was  from  the  first  constantly 
increasing.     In  the  year  of  the  Restoration  a  committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  after  strict  inquiry,  had  estimated    5 
the  net  receipt  at  about  twenty  thousand  pounds.     At  the 
close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  the  net  receipt  was 
little  short  of  fifty  thousand  pounds,  and  this  was  then  thought 
a  stupendous  sum.     The  gross  receipt  was  about  seventy 
thousand  pounds.     The  charge  for  conveying  a  single  letter  10 
was  twopence  for  eighty  miles  and  threepence  for  a  longer 
distance.    The  postage  increased  in  proportion  to  the  weight 
of  the  packet.     At  present  a  single  letter  is  carried  to  the 
extremity  of  Scotland  or  of  Ireland  for  a  penny,  and  the 
monopoly  of  post  horses  has  long   ceased    to  exist.     Yet  15 
the  gross  annual  receipts  of  the  department  amount  to  more 
than  ;^i, 800,000,  and  the  net  receipts  to  more  than  ;^7 00,000. 
It  is,  therefore,  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that  the  number 
of  letters  now  conveyed  by  mail  is  seventy  times  the  number 
which  was  so  conveyed  at  the  time  of  the  accession  of  James  20 
the  Second. 

No  part  of  the  load  which  the  old  mails  carried  out  was 
more  important  than  the  newsletters.  In  1685  nothing  like 
the  London  daily  paper  of  our  time  existed  or  could  exist. 
Neither  the  necessary  capital  nor  the  necessary  skill  was  to  25 
be  found.  Freedom,  too,  was  wanting  —  a  want  as  fatal  as 
that  of  either  capital  or  skill.  The  press  was  not  indeed  at 
that  moment  under  a  general  censorship.  The  licensing  act, 
which  had  been  passed  soon  after  the  Restoration,  had 
expired  in  1679.  ^^J  person  might,  therefore,  print,  at  his  3° 
own  risk,  a  history,  a  sermon,  or  a  poem,  without  the  pre- 
vious approbation  of  any  public  officer;  but  the  judges  were 
unanimously  of  opinion  that  this  liberty  did  not  extend  to 
gazettes,  and  that,  by  the  common  law  of  England,  no  man, 


102  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

not  authorized  by  the  crown,  had  a  right  to  publish  poUtical 
news.  While  the  Whig  party  was  still  formidable,  the  gov- 
ernment thought  it  expedient  occasionally  to  connive  at  the 
violation  of  this  rule.  During  the  great  battle  of  the  Exclu- 
5  sion  Bill,  many  newspapers  were  suffered  to  appear:  the 
Protestant  Intellige?ice,  the  Current  Intelligence,  the  Domestic 
Intelligence,  the  True  News,  the  London  Mercury.  None  of 
these  were  published  oftener  than  twice  a  week.  None 
exceeded  in  size  a  single  small  leaf.    The  quantity  of  matter 

lo  which  one  of  them  contained  in  a  year  was  not  more  than  is 
often  found  in  two  numbers  of  the  Times.  After  the  defeat 
of  the  Whigs  it  was  no  longer  necessary  for  the  king  to  be 
sparing  in  the  use  of  that  which  all  his  judges  had  pro- 
nounced to  be  his  undoubted  prerogative.     At  the  close  of 

IS  his  reign,  no  newspaper  was  suffered  to  appear  without  his 
allowance ;  and  his  allowance  was  given  exclusively  to  the 
London  Gazette.  The  London  Gazette  came  out  only  on 
Mondays  and  Thursdays.  The  contents  generally  were  a 
royal  proclamation,  two  or  three  Tory  addresses,  notices  of 

20  two  or  three  promotions,  an  account  of  a  skirmish  between 
the  imperial  troops  and  the  Janizaries  '"^  on  the  Danube,  a 
description  of  a  highwayman,  an  announcement  of  a  grand 
cockfight  between  two  persons  of  honor,  and  an  advertise- 
ment offering  a  reward  for  a  strayed  dog.     The  whole  made 

25  up  two  pages  of  moderate  size.  Whatever  was  communi- 
cated respecting  matters  of  the  highest  moment  was  commu- 
nicated in  the  most  meagre  and  formal  style.  Sometimes, 
indeed,  when  the  government  was  disposed  to  gratify  the 
public  curiosity  respecting  an  important  transaction,  a  broad- 

30  side  was  put  forth,  giving  fuller  details  than  could  be  found 
in  the  Gazette ;  but  neither  the  Gazette  nor  any  supplemen- 
tary broadside  printed  by  authority  ever  contained  any  intel- 
ligence which  it  did  not  suit  the  purposes  of  the  court  to 
publish.     The   most  important  parliamentary  debates,   the 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  103 

most  important  state  trials  recorded  in  our  history  were 
passed  over  in  profound  silence.*  In  the  capital  the  coffee- 
houses supplied,  in  some  measure,  the  place  of  a  journal. 
Thither  the  Londoners  flocked  as  the  Athenians  of  old 
flocked  to  the  market-place  to  hear  whether  there  was  any  5 
news.  There  men  might  learn  how  brutally  a  Whig  had 
been  treated  the  day  before  in  Westminster  Hall,  what  hor- 
rible accounts  the  letters  from  Edinburgh  gave  of  the  tor- 
turing of  Covenanters,  how  grossly  the  navy  board  had 
cheated  the  crown  in  the  victualling  of  the  fleet,  and  what  10 
grave  charges  the  Lord  Privy  Seal  had  brought  against  the 
treasury  in  the  matter  of  the  hearth  money.  But  people 
who  lived  at  a  distance  from  the  great  theatre  of  political 
contention  could  be  kept  regularly  informed  of  what  was 
passing  there  only  by  means  of  newsletters.  To  prepare  15 
such  letters  became  a  calling  in  London,  as  it  now  is  among 
the  natives  of  India.  The  newswriter  rambled  from  coffee- 
room  to  coffee-room,  collecting  reports,  squeezed  himself  into 
the  Sessions  House  at  the  Old  Bailey,  if  there  was  an  inter- 
esting trial,  nay,  perhaps  obtained  admission  to  the  gallery  20 
of  Whitehall,  and  noticed  how  the  king  and  duke  looked. 
In  this  way  he  gathered  materials  for  weekly  epistles, 
destined  to  enlighten  some  country  town  or  some  bench  of 
rustic  magistrates.  Such  were  the  sources  from  which  the 
inhabitants  of  the  largest  provincial  cities  and  the  great  25 
body  of  the  gentry  and  clergy  learned  almost  all  that  they 
knew  of  the  history  of  their  own  time.  We  must  suppose 
that  at  Cambridge  there  were  as  many  persons  curious  to 
know  what  was  passing  in  the  world  as  at  almost  any  place 
in  the  kingdom,  out  of  London.  Yet  at  Cambridge,  during  3a 
a  great  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  doctors 

*  For  example,  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  Gazette  about  the  impor- 
tant parliamentary  proceedings  of  November,  1685,  or  about  the  trial 
and  acquittal  of  the  seven  bishops. 


104  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

of  laws  and  the  masters  of  arts  had  no  regular  supply  of 
news  except  through  the  London  Gazette.  At  length  the  serv- 
ices of  one  of  the  collectors  of  intelligence  in  the  capital 
were  employed.  That  was  a  memorable  day  on  which  the 
5  first  newsletter  from  London  was  laid  on  the  table  of  the 
only  coffee-room  in  Cambridge.  At  the  seat  of  a  man  of 
fortune  in  the  country,  the  newsletter  was  impatiently 
expected.  Within  a  week  after  it  had  arrived,  it  had  been 
thumbed  by  twenty  families.     It  furnished  the  neighboring 

10  squires  with  matter  for  talk  over  their  October,  and  the  neigh- 
boring rectors  with  topics  for  sharp  sermons  against  Whig- 
gery  or  Popery.  Many  of  these  curious  journals  might 
doubtless  still  be  detected  by  a  diligent  search  in  the  archives 
of  old  families.    Some  are  to  be  found  in  our  public  libraries; 

15  and  one  series,  which  is  not  the  least  valuable  part  of  the 
literary  treasures  collected  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  will  be 
occasionally  quoted  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

It    is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  there  were  then  no 
provincial  newspapers.     Indeed,  except  in  the  capital  and 

20  at  the  two  universities,  there  was  scarcely  a  printer  in  the 
kingdom.  The  only  press  in  England  north  of  Trent  ap- 
pears to  have  been  at  York. 

It  was  not  only  by  means  of  the  London  Gazette  that  the 
government  undertook  to  furnish  political  instruction  to  the 

^5  people.  That  journal  contained  a  scanty  supply  of  news 
without  comment.  Another  journal,  published  under  the 
patronage  of  the  court,  consisted  of  comment  without  news. 
This  paper,  called  the  Observator,  was  edited  by  an  old 
Tory  pamphleteer  named  Roger  Lestrange.     Lestrange  was 

30  by  no  means  deficient  in  readiness  and  shrewdness,  and 
his  diction,  though  coarse  and  disfigured  by  a  mean  and 
flippant  jargon  which  then  passed  for  wit  in  the  greenroom 
and  the  tavern,  was  not  without  keenness  and  vigor.  But 
his  nature,  at  once  ferocious  and  ignoble,  showed  itself  in 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  105 

every  line  that  he  penned.  When  the  first  Observators 
appeared,  there  was  some  excuse  for  his  acrimony.  For 
the  Whigs  were  then  powerful,  and  he  had  to  contend 
against  numerous  adversaries,  whose  unscrupulous  violence 
might  seem  to  justify  unsparing  retaliation.  But  in  1685  5 
all  opposition  had  been  crushed.  A  generous  spirit  would 
have  disdained  to  insult  a  party  which  could  not  reply,  and 
to  aggravate  the  misery  of  prisoners,  of  exiles,  of  bereaved 
families  ;  but  from  the  malice  of  Lestrange  the  grave  was 
no  hiding-place  and  the  house  of  mourning  no  sanctuary.  10 
In  the  last  month  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  Wil- 
liam Jenkyn,  an  aged  dissenting  pastor  of  great  note,  who 
had  been  cruelly  persecuted  for  no  crime  but  that  of  wor- 
shipping God  according  to  the  fashion  generally  followed 
throughout  Protestant  Europe,  died  of  hardships  and  priva-  15 
tions  in  Newgate.  The  outbreak  of  popular  sympathy  could 
not  be  repressed.  The  corpse  was  followed  to  the  grave 
by  a  train  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  coaches.  Even  courtiers 
looked  sad.  Even  the  unthinking  king  showed  some  signs 
of  concern.  Lestrange  alone  set  up  a  howl  of  savage  ex-  20 
ultation,  laughed  at  the  weak  compassion  of  the  Trimmers, 
proclaimed  that  the  blasphemous  old  impostor  had  met  with 
a  most  righteous  punishment,  and  vowed  to  wage  war,  not 
only  to  the  death,  but  after  death,  with  all  the  mock  saints 
and  martyrs.  Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  paper  which  was  25 
at  this  time  the  oracle  of  the  Tory  party,  and  especially  of 
the  parochial  clergy. 

Literature  which  could  be  carried  by  the  post  bag  then 
formed  the  greater  part  of  the  intellectual  nutriment  rumi- 
nated by  the  country  divines  and  country  justices.  The  30 
difficulty  and  expense  of  conveying  large  packets  from  place 
to  place  were  so  great  that  an  extensive  work  was  longer 
in  making  its  way  from  Paternoster  Row  to  Devonshire  or 
Lancashire  than  it  now    is    in    reaching   Kentucky.     How 


106  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

scantily  a  rural  parsonage  was  then  furnished,  even  with 
books  the  most  necessary  to  a  theologian,  has  already  been 
remarked.  The  houses  of  the  gentry  were  not  more  plenti- 
fully supplied.  Few  knights  of  the  shire  had  libraries  so 
5  good  as  may  now  perpetually  be  found  in  a  servant's  hall 
or  in  the  back  parlor  of  a  small  shopkeeper.  An  esquire 
passed  among  his  neighbors  for  a  great  scholar  if  Hudibras 
and  Baker's  Chronicle,  Tarlton^s  Jests,  and  the  Seven  Cham- 
pions of  Christendom  lay  in  his  hall  window  among  the  fish- 

lo  ing-rods  and  fowling-pieces.  No  circulating  library,  no  book 
society  then  existed  even  in  the  capital ;  but  in  the  capital 
those  students  who  could  not  afford  to  purchase  largely 
had  a  resource.  The  shops  of  the  great  booksellers,  near 
Saint  Paul's  Churchyard,  were  crowded  every  day  and  all 

15  day  long  with  readers,  and  a  known  customer  was  often 
permitted  to  carry  a  volume  home.  In  the  country  there 
was  no  such  accommodation,  and  every  man  was  under  the 
necessity  of  buying  whatever  he  wished  to  read.* 

As  to   the   lady  of   the   manor  and   her  daughters,  their 

20  literary  stores  generally  consisted  of  a  prayer  book  and  a 
receipt  book.  But  in  truth  they  lost  little  by  living  in  rural 
seclusion.  For  even  in  the  highest  ranks  and  in  those 
situations  which  afforded  the  greatest  facilities  for  mental 
improvement,  the   English  women  of  that  generation  were 

25  decidedly  worse  educated  than  they  have  been  at  any  other 
time  since  the  Revival  of  Learning.  At  an  earlier  period, 
they  had  studied  the  masterpieces  of  ancient  genius.  In 
the  present  day,  they  seldom  bestow  much  attention  on  the 
dead    languages,  but  they  are  familiar  with  the  tongue  of 

30  *  Cotton  seems,  from  his  Angler,  to  have  found  room  for  his  whole 
library  in  his  hall  window,  and  Cotton  was  a  man  of  letters.  Even 
when  Franklin  first  visited  London  in  1724,  circulating  libraries  were 
unknown  there.  The  crowd  at  the  booksellers'  shops  in  Little  Britain 
is  mentioned  by  Roger  North  in  his  life  of  his  brother  John. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  107 

Pascal  and  Moliere/"^  with  the  tongue  of  Dante  and 
Tasso,^°*  with  the  tongue  of  Goethe  and  Schiller;^"*  nor  is 
there  any  purer  or  more  graceful  English  than  that  which 
accomplished  women  now  speak  and  write.  But  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  culture  of  the  5 
female  mind  seems  to  have  been  almost  entirely  neglected. 
If  a  damsel  had  the  least  smattering  of  literature,  she  was 
regarded  as  a  prodigy.  Ladies  highly  born,  highly  bred, 
and  naturally  quick-witted  were  unable  to  write  a  line  in 
their  mother  tongue  without  solecisms  and  faults  of  spelling  10 
such  as  a  charity  girl  would  now  be  ashamed  to  commit.* 

The  explanation  may  easily  be  found.  Extravagant  licen- 
tiousness, the  natural  effect  of  extravagant  austerity,  was 
now  the  mode ;  and  licentiousness  had  produced  its  ordinary 
effect,  the  moral  and  intellectual  degradation  of  women.  15 
To  their  personal  beauty  it  was  the  fashion  to  pay  rude  and 
impudent  homage.  But  the  admiration  and  desire  which 
they  inspired  were  seldom  mingled  with  respect,  with  affec- 
tion, or  with  any  chivalrous  sentiment.  The  qualities  which 
fit  them  to  be  companions,  advisers,  confidential  friends,  20 
rather  repelled  than  attracted  the  libertines  of  Whitehall. 
In  that  court,  a  maid  of  honor,  who  dressed  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  do  full  justice  to  a  white  bosom,  who  ogled  signi- 
ficantly, who  danced  voluptuously,  who  excelled  in  pert 
repartee,  who  was  not  ashamed  to  romp  with  lords  of  the  25 
bedchamber  and  captains  of  the  guards,  to  sing  sly  verses 
with  sly  expression,  or  to  put  on  a  page's  dress  for  a  frolic, 
was  more  likely  to  be  followed  and  admired,  more  likely  to 

*  One  instance  will  suffice.  Queen  Mary  had  good  natural  abilities, 
had  been  educated  by  a  bishop,  was  fond  of  history  and  poetry,  and  30 
was  regarded  by  very  eminent  men  as  a  superior  woman.  There  is,  in 
the  library  of  the  Hague,  a  superb  English  Bible  which  was  delivered 
to  her  when  she  was  crowned  in  Westminister  Abbey.  In  the  title 
page  are  these  words  in  her  own  hand  :  "  This  book  was  given  the 
king  and  I,  at  our  crownation.     Marie  R."  jj 


108  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

be  honored  with  royal  attentions,  more  likely  to  win  a  rich 
and  noble  husband  than  Jane  Grey  or  Lucy  Hutchinson 
would  have  been.^"^  In  such  circumstances  the  standard  of 
female  attainments  was  necessarily  low  ;  and  it  was  more 
5  dangerous  to  be  above  that  standard  than  to  be  beneath  it. 
Extreme  ignorance  and  frivolity  were  thought  less  unbecom- 
ing in  a  lady  than  the  slightest  tincture  of  pedantry.  Of 
the  too  celebrated  women  whose  faces  we  still  admire  on 
the  walls  of  Hampton  Court,  few  indeed  were  in  the  habit 

lo  of  reading  anything  more  valuable  than  acrostics,  lampoons, 
and  translations  of  the  Clelia  and  the  Grand  Cyrus}^^ 

The  literary  acquirements,  even  of  the  accomplished  gen- 
tlemen of  that  generation,  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  less 
solid  and  profound   than   at  an   earlier  or  a  later  period. 

15  Greek  learning,  at  least,  did  not  flourish  among  us  in  the 
days  of  Charles  the  Second  as  it  had  flourished  before  the 
Civil  War,  or  as  it  again  flourished  long  after  the  Revolu- 
tion. There  were  undoubtedly  scholars  to  whom  the  whole 
Greek  literature  from   Homer  to  Photius  was  familiar  ;  but 

20  such  scholars  were  to  be  found  almost  exclusively  among 
the  clergy  resident  at  the  universities,  and  even  at  the  uni- 
versities were  few,  and  were  ndft  fully  appreciated.  At 
Cambridge  it  was  not  thought  by  any  means  necessary  that 
a  divine  should  be  able  to  read  the  Gospels  in  the  original.* 

25  Nor  was  the  standard  at  Oxford  higher.  When,  in  the  reign 
of  William  the  Third,  Christ  Church  rose  up  as  one  man  to 
defend  the  genuineness  of  the  Epistles  of  Phalaris,^**^  that 
great  college,  then  considered  as  the  first  seat  of  philology  in 
the  kingdom,  could  not  muster  such  a  stock  of  Attic  learn- 

30  ing  as  is  now  possessed  by  several  youths  at  every  great 
public  school.     It  may  easily  be  supposed  that  a  dead  lan- 

*  Roger  North  tells  us  that  his  brother  John,  who  was  Greek  pro- 
fessor at  Cambridge,  complained  bitterly  of  the  general  neglect  of  the 
Greek  tongue  among  the  academical  clergy. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  109 

guage,  neglected  at  the  universities,  was  not  much  studied 
by  men  of  the  world.  In  a  former  age,  the  poetry  and  elo- 
quence of  Greece  had  been  the  delight  of  Raleigh  and 
Falkland.^*^^  In  a  later  age,  the  poetry  and  eloquence  of 
Greece  were  the  delight  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  of  Windham  and  5 
Grenville.^"'  But  during  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  there  was  in  England  scarcely  one  eminent  states- 
man who  could  read  with  enjoyment  a  page  of  Sophocles  or 
Plato. 

Good  Latin  scholars  were  numerous.  The  language  of  10 
Rome,  indeed,  had  not  altogether  lost  its  imperial  character, 
and  was  still,  in  many  parts  of  Europe,  almost  indispensable 
to  a  traveler  or  a  negotiator.  To  speak  it  well  was  there- 
fore a  much  more  common  accomplishment  than  in  our 
time  ;  and  neither  Oxford  nor  Cambridge  wanted  poets  who,  15 
on  a  great  occasion,  could  lay  at  the  foot  of  the  throne 
happy  imitations  of  the  verses  in  which  Virgil  and  Ovid  had 
celebrated  the  greatness  of  Augustus."" 

Yet  even  the  Latin  was  giving  way  to  a  younger  rival. 
France  united  at  that  time  almost  every  species  of  ascend-  20 
ency.  Her  military  glory  was  at  the  height.  She  had 
vanquished  mighty  coalitions.  She  had  dictated  treaties. 
She  had  subjugated  great  cities  and  provinces.  She  had 
forced  the  Castilian  pride  to  yield  her  the  precedence.  She 
had  summoned  Italian  princes  to  prostrate  themselves  at  25 
her  footstool.  Her  authority  was  supreme  in  all  matters  of 
good  breeding,  from  a  duel  to  a  minuet.  She  determined 
how  a  gentleman's  coat  must  be  cut,  how  long  his  peruke 
must  be,  whether  his  heels  must  be  high  or  low,  and  whether 
the  lace  on  his  hat  must  be  broad  or  narrow.  In  literature  3° 
she  gave  law  to  the  world.  The  fame  of  her  great  writers 
filled  Europe.  No  other  country  could  produce  a  tragic 
poet  equal  to  Racine,"^  a  comic  poet  equal  to  Moliere,  a 
trifler  so  agreeable  as  La  Fontaine,"*  a  rhetorician  so  skillful 


no  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

as  Bossuet.  The  literary  glory  of  Italy  and  of  Spain  had  set ; 
that  of  Germany  had  not  yet  dawned.  The  genius,  there- 
fore, of  the  eminent  men  who  adorned  Paris  shone  forth 
with  a  splendor  which  was  set  off  to  full  advantage  by  con- 
5  trast.  France,  indeed,  had  at  that  time  an  empire  over 
mankind,  such  as  even  the  Roman  Republic  never  attained. 
For  when  Rome  was  politically  dominant,  she  was  in  arts 
and  letters  the  humble  pupil  of  Greece.  France  had,  over 
the   surrounding  countries,  at  once  the  ascendency  which 

lo  Rome  had  over  Greece,  and  the  ascendency  which  Greece 
had  over  Rome.  French  was  fast  becoming  the  universal 
language,  the  language  of  fashionable  society,  the  language 
of  diplomacy.  At  several  courts  princes  and  nobles  spoke 
it  more  accurately  and  politely  than  their  mother  tongue. 

15  In  our  island  there  was  less  of  this  servility  than  on  the 
Continent.  Neither  our  good  nor  our  bad  qualities  were 
those  of  imitators.  Yet  even  here  homage  was  paid,  awk- 
wardly indeed  and  sullenly,  to  the  literary  supremacy  of  our 
neighbors.     The  melodious  Tuscan,  so  familiar  to  the  gal- 

20  lants  and  ladies  of  the  court  of  Elizabeth,  sank  into  con- 
tempt. A  gentleman  who  quoted  Horace  or  Terence  was 
considered  in  good  company  as  a  pompous  pedant.  But  to 
garnish  his  conversation  with  scraps  of  French  was  the  best 
proof  which  he  could  give  of  his  parts  and  attainments.* 

25  New  canons  of  criticism,  new  models  of  style  came  into 
fashion.  The  quaint  ingenuity  which  had  deformed  the 
verses  of  Donne  "^  and  had  been  a  blemish  on  those  of 
Cowley  "*  disappeared  from  our  poetry.  Our  prose  became 
less  majestic,  less  artfully  involved,  less  variously  musical 

30        *  Butler  in  a  satire  of  great  asperity  says, 

"  For,  though  to  smatter  words  of  Greek 
And  Latin  be  the  rhetorique 
Of  pedants  counted,  and  vainglorious, 
To  smatter  French  is  meritorious." 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  Ill 

than  that  of  an  earlier  age,  but  more  lucid,  more  easy,  and 
better  fitted  for  controversy  and  narrative.  In  these  changes 
it  is  impossible  not  to  recognize  the  influence  of  French 
precept  and  of  French  example.  Great  masters  of  our  lan- 
guage, in  their  most  dignified  compositions,  affected  to  use  5 
French  words  when  English  words,  quite  as  expressive  and 
melodious,  were  at  hand  :  *  and  from  France  was  imported 
the  tragedy  in  rhyme,  an  exotic  which,  in  our  soil,  drooped 
and  speedily  died. 

It  would  have  been  well  if  our  writers  had  also  copied  the  10 
decorum  which  their  great  French  contemporaries,  with  few 
exceptions,  preserved ;    for   the  profligacy  of   the  English 
plays,  satires,  songs,  and  novels  of  that  age  is  a  deep  blot 
on  our  national  fame.     The  evil  may  easily  be  traced  to  its 
source.     The   wits   and  the   Puritans   had   never   been  on  15 
friendly  terms.     There  was  no  sympathy  between  the  two 
classes.     They  looked  on  the  whole  system  of  human  life 
from  different  points  and  in  different  lights.     The  earnest  of 
each  was  the  jest  of  the  other.     The  pleasures  of  each  were 
the  torments  of  the  other.     To  the  stern  precisian  even  the  20 
innocent  sport  of  the  fancy  seemed  a  crime.     To  light  and 
festive  natures  the  solemnity  of  the  zealous  brethren  fur- 
nished copious  matter  of  ridicule.     From  the  Reformation 
to  the   Civil  War,  almost  every  writer,  gifted  with  a  fine 
sense  of  the  ludicrous,  had  taken  some  opportunity  of  assail-  25 
ing  the  straight-haired,  snuffling,  whining  saints,  who  chris- 
tened their  children   out  of   the   Book  of   Nehemiah,  who 
groaned  in  spirit  at  the  sight  of  Jack  in  the  Green,"*  and 
who  thought  it  impious  to  taste  plum  porridge  on  Christmas 

*  The  most  offensive  instance  which  I  remember  is  in  a  poem  on  30 

the  coronation  of  Charles  the  Second  by  Dryden,  who  certainly  could 

not  plead  poverty  as  an  excuse  for  borrowing  words  from  any  foreign 

tongue :  „  ^.., 

°  Hither  in  summer  evenings  you  repair, 

To  taste  the  fraicheur  of  the  cooler  air." 


112  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

Day.  At  length  a  time  came  when  the  laughers  began  to 
look  grave  in  their  turn.  The  rigid,  ungainly  zealots,  after 
having  furnished  much  good  sport  during  two  generations, 
rose  up  in  arms,  conquered,  ruled,  and,  grimly  smiling,  trod 

5  down  under  their  feet  the  whole  crowd  of  mockers.  The 
wounds  inflicted  by  gay  and  petulant  malice  were  retaliated 
with  the  gloomy  and  implacable  malice  peculiar  to  bigots 
who  mistake  their  own  rancor  for  virtue.  The  theatres 
were  closed.     The  players  were    flogged.     The    press  was 

10  put  under  the  guardianship  of  austere  licensers.  The  Muses 
were  banished  from  their  own  favorite  haunts.  Cowley  was 
ejected  from  Cambridge  and  Crashaw  from  Oxford. ^^'^  The 
young  candidate  for  academical  honors  was  no  longer  re- 
quired to  write  Ovidian  epistles  or  Virgilian  pastorals,  but 

IS  was  strictly  interrogated  by  a  synod  of  lowering  Supralapsa- 
rians^^^  as  to  the  day  and  hour  when  he  experienced  the 
new  birth.  Such  a  system  was  of  course  fruitful  of  hypo- 
crites. Under  sober  clothing  and  under  visages  composed 
to  the  expression  of  austerity  lay  hid  during  several  years 

2o  the  intense  desire  of  license  and  of  revenge.  At  length 
that  desire  was  gratified.  The  Restoration  emancipated 
thousands  of  minds  from  a  yoke  which  had  become  insup- 
portable. The  old  fight  recommenced,  but  with  an  ani- 
mosity altogether  new.     It  was  now  not  a  sportive  combat, 

25  but  a  war  to  the  death.  The  Roundhead  had  no  better 
quarter  to  expect  from  those  whom  he  had  persecuted  than 
a  cruel  slave-driver  can  expect  from  insurgent  slaves  still 
bearing  the  marks  of  his  collars  and  his  scourges. 

The  war  between  wit  and  Puritanism  soon  became  a  war 

30  between  wit  and  morality.  The  hostility  excited  by  a  gro- 
tesque caricature  of  virtue  did  not  spare  virtue  herself. 
Whatever  the  canting  Roundhead  had  regarded  with  rever- 
ence was  insulted.  Whatever  he  had  proscribed  was  fa- 
vored.    Because  he  had  been  scrupulous  about  trifles,  all 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  113 

scruples  were  treated  with  derision.  Because  he  had  cov- 
ered his  failings  with  the  mask  of  devotion,  men  were  en- 
couraged to  obtrude  with  cynic  impudence  all  their  most 
scandalous  vices  on  the  public  eye.  Because  he  had  pun- 
ished illicit  love  with  barbarous  severity,  virgin  purity  and  5 
conjugal  fidelity  were  to  be  made  a  jest.  To  that  sancti- 
monious jargon,  which  was  his  shibboleth,  was  opposed 
another  jargon  not  less  absurd  and  much  more  odious.  As 
he  never  opened  his  mouth  except  in  Scriptural  phrase,  the 
new  breed  of  wits  and  fine  gentlemen  never  opened  their  10 
mouths  without  uttering  ribaldry  of  which  a  porter  would 
now  be  ashamed,  and  without  calling  on  their  Maker  to 
curse  them,  sink  them,  confound  them,  blast  them,  and 
damn  them. 

It    is   not    strange,    therefore,  that    our  polite  literature,  15 
when  it  revived  with  the  revival  of  the  old  civil  and  ecclesi- 
astical polity,   should  have   been    profoundly  immoral.     A 
few  eminent  men,  who   belonged  to  an  earlier  and  better 
age,  were  exempt  from  the  general  contagion.     The  verse 
of  Waller"^  still   breathed   the  sentiments  which  had  ani-  20 
mated  a  more  chivalrous  generation.    Cowley,  distinguished 
at  once  as  a  loyalist  and  as  a  man  of   letters,  raised  his 
voice  courageously  against  the  immorality  which  disgraced 
both    letters    and    loyalty.     A    mightier    spirit,  unsubdued 
by  pain,    danger,    poverty,  obloquy,  and    blindness,  medi-  25 
tated,  undisturbed  by  the  obscene  tumult  which  raged  all 
around,  a   song  so  sublime  and  so  holy  that  it  would  not 
have  misbecome  the  lips  of  those  ethereal  Virtues  whom  he 
saw,  what  that  inner  eye  which  no  calamity  could  darken, 
flinging    down    on  the    jasper   pavement   their  crowns    of  30 
amaranth  and  gold."^     The  vigorous  and  fertile  genius  of 
Butler,"^  if  it  did  not  altogether  escape  the  prevailing  infec- 
tion, took  the  disease  in  a  mild  form.     But  these  were  men 
whose  minds  had  been  trained  in  a  world  which  had  passed 


114  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

away.  They  gave  place  in  no  long  time  to  a  younger  gen- 
eration of  poets,  and  of  that  generation,  from  Dryden  down 
to  Durfey,  the  common  characteristic  was  hard-hearted, 
shameless,  swaggering  licentiousness,  at  once  inelegant  and 
5  inhuman.  The  influence  of  these  writers  was  doubtless 
noxious,  yet  less  noxious  than  it  would  have  been  had  they 
been  less  depraved.  The  poison  which  they  administered 
was  so  strong  that  it  was,  in  no  long  time,  rejected  with 
nausea.     None  of    them  understood  the  dangerous  art  of 

lo  associating  images  of  unlawful  pleasure  with  all  that  is  en- 
dearing and  ennobling.  None  of  them  was  aware  that  a 
certain  decorum  is  essential  even  to  voluptuousness,  that 
drapery  may  be  more  alluring  than  exposure,  and  that  the 
imagination  may  be  far  more  powerfully  moved  by  delicate 

15  hints  which  impel  it  to  exert  itself  than  by  gross  descrip- 
tions which  it  takes  in  passively. 

The  spirit  of  the  Anti-Puritan  reaction  pervades  almost 
the  whole  polite  literature  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second.     But  the  very  quintessence  of  that  spirit  will    be 

20  found  in  the  comic  drama.  The  playhouses,  shut  by  the 
meddling  fanatic  in  the  day  of  his  power,  were  again 
crowded.  To  their  old  attractions  new  and  more  powerful 
attractions  had  been  added.  Scenery,  dresses,  and  decora- 
tions such  as  would  now  be  thought  mean  and  absurd,  but 

25  such  as  would  have  been  esteemed  incredibly  magnificent 
by  those  who,  early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  sate  on  the 
filthy  benches  of  the  Hope  or  under  the  thatched  roof  of 
the  Rose,  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  multitude.  The  fascina- 
tion of  sex  was  called  in  to  aid  the  fascination  of  art ;  and 

30  the  young  spectator  saw,  with  emotions  unknown  to  the 
contemporaries  of  Shakespeare  and  Jonson,^**  tender  and 
sprightly  heroines  personified  by  lovely  women. ^^^  From 
the  day  on  which  the  theatres  were  reopened  they  became 
seminaries    of   vice,  and  the    evil  propagated  itself.     The 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  115 

profligacy  of  the  representations  soon  drove  away  sober 
people.  The  frivolous  and  dissolute  who  remained  re- 
quired every  year  stronger  and  stronger  stimulants.  Thus 
the  artists  corrupted  the  spectators,  and  the  spectators  the 
artists,  till  the  turpitude  of  the  drama  became  such  as  must  s 
astonish  all  who  are  not  aware  that  extreme  relaxation  is 
the  natural  effect  of  extreme  restraint,  and  that  an  age  of 
hypocrisy  is,  in  the  regular  course  of  things,  followed  by  an 
age  of  impudence. 

Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  the  times  than  the  care  lo 
with  which  the  poets  contrived  to  put  all  their  loosest  verses 
into  the  mouths  of  women.  The  compositions  in  which  the 
greatest  license  was  taken  were  the  epilogues.  They  were 
almost  always  recited  by  favorite  actresses,  and  nothing 
charmed  the  depraved  audience  so  much  as  to  hear  lines  15 
grossly  indecent  repeated  by  a  beautiful  girl,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  have  not  yet  lost  her  innocence. 

Our  theatre  was  indebted  in  that  age  for  many  plots  and 
characters  to  Spain,  to  France,  and  to  the  old  English  mas- 
ters ;  but  whatever  our  dramatists  touched  they  tainted.  In  20 
their  imitations  the  houses  of  Calderon's  ^^^  stately  and  high 
spirited  Castilian  gentlemen  became  sties  of  vice,  Shakes- 
peare's Viola  ^^  a  procuress,  Moliere's  misanthrope  a  rav- 
isher,  Moliere's  Agnes  an  adulteress.  Nothing  could  be  so 
pure  or  so  heroic  but  that  it  became  foul  and  ignoble  by  25 
transfusion  through  those  foul  and  ignoble  minds. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  drama  ;  and  the  drama  was  the 
department  of  light  literature  in  which  a  poet  had  the  best 
chance  of  obtaining  a  subsistence  by  his  pen.  The  sale  of 
books  was  so  small  that  a  man  of  the  greatest  name  could  30 
expect  only  a  pittance  for  the  copyright  of  the  best  per- 
formance. There  cannot  be  a  stronger  instance  than  the 
fate  of  Dryden's  last  production,  the  Fables.  That  vol- 
ume was  published  when  he  was  universally  admitted  to  be 


116  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

the  chief  of  living  English  poets.  It  contains  about  twelve 
thousand  lines.  The  versification  is  admirable,  the  narra- 
tives and  descriptions  full  of  life.  To  this  day  Palamon 
and  Arcite,  Cymon  and  Iphigenia,  Theodore  and  Honoria 
5  are  the  delight  both  of  critics  and  of  schoolboys.  The 
collection  includes  Alexander' s  Feast,  the  noblest  ode  in  our 
language.  For  the  copyright  Dryden  received  two  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds,  less  than  in  our  days  has  sometimes  been 
paid  for  two  articles  in  a  review.     Nor  does  the   bargain 

10  seem  to  have  been  a  hard  one.  For  the  book  went  off 
slowly,  and  a  second  edition  was  not  required  till  the 
author  had  been  ten  years  in  his  grave.  By  writing  for  the 
theatre  it  was  possible  to  earn  a  much  larger  sum  with 
much    less   trouble.       Southern  ^^*   made     seven     hundred 

If  pounds  by  one  play.  Otway  ^'-^  was  raised  from  beggary  to 
temporary  affluence  by  the  success  of  his  Don  Carlos. 
Shadwell  ^^^  cleared  a  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  by  a  single 
representation  of  the  Squire  of  Alsatia.  The  consequence 
was  that  every  man  who   had  to  live  by  his  wit  wrote  plays 

20  whether  he  had  any  internal  vocation  to  write  plays  or  not. 
It  was  thus  with  Dryden.  As  a  satirist  he  has  rivaled 
Juvenal.^^''  As  a  didactic  poet  he  perhaps  might,  with  care 
and  meditation,  have  rivaled  Lucretius.^^*  Of  lyric  poets 
he  is,  if  not  the  most  sublime,  the  most  brilliant  and  spirit- 

25  stirring.  But  nature,  profuse  to  him  of  many  rare  gifts, 
had  denied  him  the  dramatic  faculty.  Nevertheless  all  the 
energies  of  his  best  years  were  wasted  on  dramatic  com- 
position. He  had  too  much  judgment  not  to  be  aware  that 
in  the  power  of  exhibiting  character  by  means  of  dialogue 

30  he  was  deficient.  That  deficiency  he  did  his  best  to  con- 
ceal, sometimes  by  surprising  and  amusing  incidents,  some- 
times by  stately  declamation,  sometimes  by  harmonious 
numbers,  sometimes  by  ribaldry  but  too  well  suited  to  the 
taste  of   a  profane    and   licentious  pit.     Yet  he  never  ob- 


ENGLAND   IN  16S5.  117 

tained  any  theatrical  success  equal  to  that  which  rewarded 
the  exertions  of  some  men  far  inferior  to  him  in  general 
powers.  He  thought  himself  fortunate  if  he  cleared  a  hun- 
dred guineas  by  a  play  ;  a  scanty  remuneration,  yet  appar- 
ently larger  than  he  could  have  earned  in  any  other  way  5 
by  the  same  quantity  of  labor. 

The  recompense  which  the  wits  of  that  age  could  obtain 
from  the  public  was  so  small  that  they  were  under  the 
necessity  of  eking  out  their  incomes  by  levying  contribu- 
tions on  the  great.  Every  rich  and  good-natured  lord  was  10 
pestered  by  authors  with  a  mendicancy  so  importune,  and  a 
flattery  so  abject,  as  may  in  our  time  seem  incredible.  The 
patron  to  whom  a  work  was  inscribed  was  expected  to  re- 
ward the  writer  with  a  purse  of  gold.  The  fee  paid  for  the 
dedication  of  a  book  was  often  much  larger  than  the  sum  15 
which  any  bookseller  would  give  for  the  copyright.  Books 
were  therefore  often  printed  merely  that  they  might  be 
dedicated.  This  traffic  in  praise  completed  the  degrada- 
tion of  the  literary  character.  Adulation  pushed  to  the 
verge,  sometimes  of  nonsense  and  sometimes  of  impiety,  20 
was  not  thought  to  disgrace  a  poet.  Independence,  verac- 
ity, self-respect,  were  things  not  expected  by  the  world 
from  him.  In  truth,  he  was  in  morals  something  between  a 
pandar  and  a  beggar. 

To  the  other  vices  which  degraded  the  literary  character  25 
was  added,  toward  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second,  the  most  savage  intemperance  of  party  spirit.  The 
wits,  as  a  class,  had  been  impelled  by  their  old  hatred  of 
Puritanism  to  take  the  side  of  the  court,  and  had  been 
found  useful  allies.  Dryden,  in  particular,  had  done  good  3° 
service  to  the  government.  His  Absalom  and  Achitophel, 
the  greatest  satire  of  modern  times,  had  amazed  the  town, 
had  made  its  way  with  unprecedented  rapidity  even  into 
rural   districts,  and   had,  wherever  it  appeared,  bitterly  an- 


118  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

noyed  the  Exclusionists  and  raised  the  courage  of  the 
Tories.  But  we  must  not,  in  the  admiration  which  we 
naturally  feel  for  noble  diction  and  versification,  forget  the 
great  distinctions  of  good  and  evil.  The  spirit  by  which 
5  Dryden  and  several  of  his  compeers  were  at  this  time  ani- 
mated against  the  Whigs  deserves  to  be  called  fiendish. 
The  servile  judges  and  sheriffs  of  those  evil  days  could  not 
shed  blood  so  fast  as  the  poets  cried  out  for  it.  Calls  for 
more   victims,  hideous  jests   on  hanging,   bitter  taunts   on 

10  those  who,  having  stood  by  the  king  in  the  hour  of  danger, 
now  advised  him  to  deal  mercifully  and  generously  by  his 
vanquished  enemies,  were  publicly  recited  on  the  stage, 
and,  that  nothing  might  be  wanting  to  the  guilt  and  the 
shame,    were    recited    by   women,  who,  having  long    been 

IS  taught  to  discard  all  modesty,  were  now  taught  to  discard 
all  compassion. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  while  the  lighter  literature  of 
England  was  thus  becoming  a  nuisance  and  a  national  dis- 
grace, the  English  genius  was  effecting  in  science  a  revolution 

2o  which  will,  to  the  end  of  time,  be  reckoned  among  the  highest 
achievements  of  the  human  intellect.  Bacon  had  sown  the 
good  seed  in  a  sluggish  soil  and  an  ungenial  season.  He 
had  not  expected  an  early  crop,  and  in  his  last  testament 
had  solemnly  bequeathed  his  fame  to  the  next  age.     During 

25  a  whole  generation  his  philosophy  had,  amidst  tumults,  wars, 
and  proscriptions,  been  slowly  ripening  in  a  few  well-consti- 
tuted minds.  While  factions  were  struggling  for  dominion 
over  each  other,  a  small  body  of  sages  had  turned  away  with 
benevolent  disdain  from  the  conflict,  and  had  devoted  them- 

30  selves  to  the  nobler  work  of  extending  the  dominion  of  man 
over  matter.  As  soon  as  tranquillity  was  restored,  these 
teachers  easily  found  attentive  audience.  For  the  discipline 
through  which  the  nation  had  passed  had  brought  the  public 
mind  to  a  temper  well  fitted  for  the  reception  of  the  Veru- 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  119 

lamian  doctrine.^^  The  civil  troubles  had  stimulated  the 
faculties  of  the  educated  classes  and  had  called  forth  a 
restless  activity  and  an  insatiable  curiosity  such  as  had  not 
before  been  known  among  us.  Yet  the  effect  of  those 
troubles  had  been  that  schemes  of  political  and  religious  5 
reform  were  generally  regarded  with  suspicion  and  contempt. 
During  twenty  years  the  chief  employment  of  busy  and 
ingenious  men  had  been  to  frame  constitutions  with  first 
magistrates,  without  first  magistrates,  with  hereditary  senates, 
with  senates  appointed  by  lot,  with  annual  senates,  with  per-  10 
petual  senates.  In  these  plans  nothing  was  omitted.  All 
the  detail,  all  the  nomenclature,  all  the  ceremonial  of  the 
imaginary  government  was  fully  set  forth  —  Polemarchs  and 
Phylarchs,  Tribes  and  Galaxies,  the  Lord  Archon  and  the 
Lord  Strategus.  Which  ballot  boxes  were  to  be  green  and  15 
which  red,  which  balls  were  to  be  of  gold  and  which  of 
silver,  which  magistrates  were  to  wear  hats  and  which  black 
velvet  caps  with  peaks,  how  the  mace  was  to  be  carried  and 
when  the  heralds  were  to  uncover,  —  these  and  a  hundred 
more  such  trifles  were  gravely  considered  and  arranged  by  20 
men  of  no  common  capacity  and  learning.  But  the  time  for 
these  visions  had  gone  by;  and,  if  any  steadfast  republican 
still  continued  to  amuse  himself  with  them,  fear  of  public 
derision  and  of  a  criminal  information  generally  induced  him 
to  keep  his  fancies  to  himself.  It  was  now  unpopular  and  25 
unsafe  to  mutter  a  word  against  the  fundamental  laws  of  the 
monarchy;  but  daring  and  ingenious  men  might  indemnify 
themselves  by  treating  with  disdain  what  had  lately  been 
considered  as  the  fundamental  laws  of  nature.  The  torrent 
which  had  been  dammed  up  in  one  channel  rushed  violently  3° 
into  another.  The  revolutionary  spirit,  ceasing  to  operate  in 
politics,  began  to  exert  itself  with  unprecedented  vigor  and 
hardihood  in  every  department  of  physics.  The  year  1660, 
the  era  of  the  restoration  of  the  old  constitution,  is  also  the 


120  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

era  from  which  dates  the  ascendency  of  the  new  philosophy. 
In  that  year  the  Royal  Society,  destined  to  be  a  chief  agent 
in  a  long  series  of  glorious  and  salutary  reforms,  began  to 
exist.     In  a  few  months  experimental   science   became  all 

5  the  mode.  The  transfusion  of  blood,  the  ponderation  of  air, 
the  fixation  of  mercury,  succeeded  to  that  place  in  the  public 
mind  which  had  been  lately  occupied  by  the  controversies 
of  the  Rota.  Dreams  of  perfect  forms  of  government  made 
way  for  dreams  of  wings  with  which  men  were  to  fly  from  the 

10  Tower  to  the  Abbey,  and  of  double-keeled  ships  which  were 
never  to  founder  in  the  fiercest  storm.  All  classes  were 
hurried  along  by  the  prevailing  sentiment.  CavaUer  and 
Roundhead,  Churchman  and  Puritan  were  for  once  allied. 
Divines,  jurists,  statesmen,  nobles,  princes  swelled  the  tri- 

15  umph  of  the  Baconian  philosophy.  Poets  sang  with  emulous 
fervor  the  approach  of  the  golden  age.  Cowley,  in  lines 
weighty  with  thought  and  resplendent  with  wit,  urged  the 
chosen  seed  to  take  possession  of  the  promised  land  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey,  that  land  which  their  great  deliverer 

20  and  lawgiver  had  seen  as  from  the  summit  of  Pisgah,  but 
had  not  been  permitted  to  enter.  Dryden,  with  more  zeal 
than  knowledge,  joined  his  voice  to  the  general  acclamation, 
and  foretold  things  which  neither  he  nor  anybody  else 
understood.     The  Royal  Society,  he  predicted,  would  soon 

25  lead  us  to  the  extreme  verge  of  the  globe,  and  there  delight 
us  with  a  better  view  of  the  moon.*  Two  able  and  aspiring 
prelates.  Ward,  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  Wilkins,  Bishop  of 
Chester,  were  conspicuous  among  the  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment.     Its  history  was    eloquently  written   by  a   younger 

30  «  "  Then  we  upon  the  globe's  last  verge  shall  go, 

And  view  the  ocean  leaning  on  the  sky; 
From  thence  our  rolling  neighbors  we  shall  know, 
And  on  the  lunar  world  securely  pry." 

Annus  Mirabilis,  164. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  121 

divine  who  was  rising  to  high  distinction  in  his  profession, 
Thomas  Sprat,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Rochester.  Both  Chief 
Justice  Hale  and  Lord  Keeper  Guildford  stole  some  hours 
from  the  business  of  their  courts  to  write  on  hydrostatics. 
Indeed  it  was  under  the  immediate  directions  of  Guildford  5 
that  the  first  barometers  ever  exposed  to  sale  in  London 
were  constructed.  Chemistry  divided,  for  a  time,  with  wine 
and  love,  with  the  stage  and  the  gaming-table,  with  the 
intrigues  of  a  courtier  and  the  intrigues  of  a  demagogue,  the 
attention  of  the  fickle  Buckingham,  Rupert  ^^  has  the  credit  lo 
of  having  invented  mezzotinto,  and  from  him  is  named  that 
curious  bubble  of  glass  which  has  long  amused  children  and 
puzzled  philosophers.  Charles  himself  had  a  laboratory  at 
Whitehall,  and  was  far  more  active  and  attentive  there  than 
at  the  council  board.  It  was  almost  necessary  to  the  char-  15 
acter  of  a  fine  gentleman  to  have  something  to  say  about 
air-pumps  and  telescopes;  and  even  fine  ladies,  now  and 
then,  thought  it  becoming  to  affect  a  taste  for  science,  went 
in  coaches  and  six  to  visit  the  Gresham  curiosities,  and  broke 
forth  into  cries  of  delight  at  finding  that  a  magnet  really  20 
attracted  a  needle,  and  that  a  microscope  really  made  a  fly 
look  as  large  as  a  sparrow. 

In  this,  as  in  every  great  stir  of  the  human  mind,  there 
was  doubtless  something  which  might  well  move  a  smile.  It 
is  the  universal  law  that  whatever  pursuit,  whatever  doctrine  25 
becomes  fashionable  shall  lose  a  portion  of  that  dignity  which 
it  had  possessed  while  it  was  confined  to  a  small  but  earnest 
minority,  and  was  loved  for  its  own  sake  alone.  It  is  true 
that  the  follies  of  some  persons  who,  without  any  real  aptitude 
for  science,  professed  a  passion  for  it,  furnished  matter  of  3° 
contemptuous  mirth  to  a  few  malignant  satirists  who  belonged 
to  the  preceding  generation,  and  were  not  disposed  to  unlearn 
the  lore  of  their  youth.  But  it  is  not  less  true  that  the  great 
work  of  interpreting  nature  was  performed  by  the  English  of 


122  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

that  age  as  it  had  never  before  been  performed  in  any  age 
by  any  nation.  The  spirit  of  Francis  Bacon  was  abroad,  a 
spirit  admirably  compounded  of  audacity  and  sobriety.  There 
was  a  strong  persuasion  that  the  whole  world  was  full  of 
5  secrets  of  high  moment  to  the  happiness  of  man,  and  that 
man  had,  by  his  Maker,  been  intrusted  with  the  key  which, 
rightly  used,  would  give  access  to  them.  There  was  at  the 
same  time  a  conviction  that  in  physics  it  was  impossible  to 
arrive  at  the  knowledge  of  general  laws  except  by  the  care- 

lo  ful  observation  of  particular  facts.  Deeply  impressed  with 
these  great  truths,  the  professors  of  the  new  philosophy 
applied  themselves  to  their  task,  and  before  a  quarter  of  a 
century  had  expired,  they  had  given  ample  earnest  of  what 
has  since  been  achieved.     Already  a  reform  of  agriculture 

IS  had  been  commenced.  New  vegetables  were  cultivated. 
New  implements  of  husbandry  were  employed.  New  man- 
ures were  applied  to  the  soil.  Evelyn  '^^  had,  under  the 
formal  sanction  of  the  Royal  Society,  given  instruction  to 
his  countrymen  in  planting.      Temple,  in  his  intervals  of 

20  leisure,  had  tried  many  experiments  in  horticulture,  and  had 
proved  that  many  delicate  fruits,  the  natives  of  more  favored 
climates,  might,  with  the  help  of  art,  be  grown  on  English 
ground.  Medicine,  which  in  France  was  still  in  abject  bond- 
age and  afforded  an  inexhaustible  subject  of  just  ridicule 

25  to  Moliere,  had  in  England  become  an  experimental  and 
progressive  science,  and  every  day  made  some  new  advance, 
in  defiance  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen.^^^  The  attention  of 
speculative  men  had  been,  for  the  first  time,  directed  to  the 
important  subject  of  sanitary  police.     The  great  plague  of 

30  1665  induced  them  to  consider  with  care  the  defective  archi- 
tecture, draining,  and  ventilation  of  the  capital.  The  great 
fire  of  1666  afforded  an  opportunity  for  effecting  extensive 
improvements.  The  whole  matter  was  diligently  examined 
by  the  Royal  Society,  and  to  the  suggestions  of  that  body 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  123 

must  be  partly  attributed  the  changes  which,  though  far 
short  of  what  the  public  welfare  required,  yet  made  a  wide 
difference  between  the  new  and  the  old  London,  and  prob- 
ably put  a  final  close  to  the  ravages  of  pestilence  in  our 
country.  At  the  same  time  one  of  the  founders  of  the  s 
society.  Sir  William  Petty,  created  the  science  of  political 
arithmetic,  the"  humble  but  indispensable  handmaid  of  polit- 
ical philosophy.  To  that  period  belonged  the  chemical 
discoveries  of  Boyle  and  the  first  botanical  researches  of 
Sloane.^^  One  after  another,  phantoms  which  had  haunted  lo 
the  world  through  ages  of  darkness  fled  before  the  light. 
Astrology  and  alchemy  became  jests.  Soon  there  was 
scarcely  a  county  in  which  some  of  the  quorum  did  not 
smile  contemptuously  when  an  old  woman  was  brought 
before  them  for  riding  on  broomsticks  or  giving  cattle  the  15 
murrain.  But  it  was  in  those  noblest  and  most  arduous 
departments  of  knowledge  in  which  induction  and  mathe- 
matical demonstration  cooperate  for  the  discovery  of  truth 
that  the  English  genius  won  in  that  age  the  most  memorable 
triumphs.  John  Wallis  placed  the  whole  system  of  statics  20 
on  a  new  foundation.  Edmund  Halley  investigated  the 
properties  of  the  atmosphere,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea, 
the  laws  of  magnetism,  and  the  course  of  the  comets ;  nor 
did  he  shrink  from  toil,  peril,  and  exile  in  the  cause  of  sci- 
ence. While  he,  on  the  rock  of  St.  Helena,  mapped  the  25 
constellations  of  the  southern  hemisphere,  our  national 
observatory  was  rising  at  Greenwich  ;  and  John  Flamsteed, 
the  first  astronomer  royal,  was  commencing  that  long  series 
of  observations  which  is  never  mentioned  without  respect 
and  gratitude  in  any  part  of  the  globe.  But  the  glory  of  30 
these  men,  eminent  as  they  were,  is  cast  into  the  shade  by 
the  transcendent  luster  of  one  immortal  name.  In  Isaac 
Newton  two  kinds  of  intellectual  power  which  have  little  in 
common  and  which  are  not  often  found  together  in  a  very 


124  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

high  degree  of  vigor,  but  which  nevertheless  are  equally 
necessary  in  the  most  sublime  departments  of  natural  phi- 
losophy, were  united  as  they  have  never  been  united  before 
or  since.  There  may  have  been  minds  as  happily  constituted 
5  as  his  for  the  cultivation  of  pure  mathematical  science;  there 
may  have  been  minds  as  happily  constituted  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  science  purely  experimental;  but  in  no  other  mind 
have  the  demonstrative  faculty  and  the  inductive  faculty 
coexisted  in  such  supreme  excellence  and  perfect  harmony. 

lo  Perhaps  in  an  age  of  Scotists  and  Thomists  ^^  even  his 
intellect  might  have  run  to  waste,  as  many  intellects  ran  to 
waste  which  were  inferior  only  to  his.  Happily  the  spirit  of 
the  age  on  which  his  lot  was  cast  gave  the  right  direction  to 
his  mind;  and  his  mind  reacted  with  tenfold  force  on  the 

15  spirit  of  the  age.  In  the  year  1685  his  fame,  though  splen 
did,  was  only  dawning ;  but  his  genius  was  in  the  meridian. 
His  great  work,  that  work  which  effected  a  revolution  in  the 
most  important  provinces  of  natural  philosophy,  had  been 
completed,  but  was  not  yet  published,  and  was  just  about  to 

20  be  submitted  to  the  consideration  of  the  Royal  Society. 

It  is  not  very  easy  to  explain  why  the  nation  which  was  so 
far  before  its  neighbors  in  science  should  in  art  have  been 
far  behind  them  all.  Yet  such  was  the  fact.  It  is  true  that 
in  architecture,  an  art  which  is  half  a  science,  an  art  in  which 

25  none  but  a  geometrician  can  excel,  an  art  which  has  no 
standard  of  grace  but  what  is  directly  or  indirectly  dependent 
on  utility,  an  art  of  which  the  creations  derive  a  part,  at  least, 
of  their  majesty  from  mere  bulk,  our  country  could  boast  of 
one  truly  great  man,  Christopher  Wren;  ^^  and  the  fire  which 

30  laid  London  in  ruins  had  given  him  an  opportunity,  unprece- 
dented in  modern  history,  of  displaying  his  powers.  The 
austere  beauty  of  the  Athenian  portico,  the  gloomy  sublimity 
of  the  Gothic  arcade,  he  was,  like  almost  all  his  contempo- 
raries,  incapable  of    emulating,   and  perhaps   incapable   of 


ENGLAND   IN  1685.  125 

appreciating;  but  no  man,  born  on  our  side  of  the  Alps,  has 
imitated  with  so  much  success  the  magnificence  of  the  palace- 
like churches  of  Italy.  Even  the  superb  Louis  '^  has  left  to 
posterity  no  work  which  can  bear  a  comparison  with  Saint 
Paul's.  But  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  s 
there  was  not  a  single  English  painter  or  statuary  whose 
name  is  now  remembered.  This  sterility  is  somewhat  myste- 
rious, for  painters  and  statuaries  were  by  no  means  a  despised 
or  an  ill-paid  class.  Their  social  position  was  at  least  as 
high  as  at  present.  Their  gains,  when  compared  with  the  lo 
wealth  of  the  nation  and  with  the  remuneration  of  other 
descriptions  of  intellectual  labor,  were  even  larger  than  at 
present.  Indeed,  the  munificent  patronage  which  was  ex- 
tended to  artists  drew  them  to  our  shores  in  multitudes. 
Lely,^^''  who  has  preserved  to  us  the  rich  curls,  the  full  lips,  15 
and  the  languishing  eyes  of  the  frail  beauties  celebrated  by 
Hamilton, ^"^  was  a  Westphalian.  He  had  died  in  1680,  hav- 
ing long  lived  splendidly,  having  received  the  honor  of  knight- 
hood, and  having  accumulated  a  good  estate  out  of  the  fruits 
of  his  skill.  His  noble  collection  of  drawings  and  pictures  20 
was,  after  his  decease,  exhibited  by  the  royal  permission  in 
the  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall,  and  sold  by  auction  for 
the  almost  incredible  sum  of  twenty-six  thousand  pounds,  a 
sum  which  bore  a  greater  proportion  to  the  fortunes  of  the 
rich  men  of  that  day  than  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  would  25 
bear  to  the  fortunes  of  the  rich  men  of  our  time.  Lely  was 
succeeded  by  his  countryman  Godfrey  Kneller,^^^  who  was 
made  first  a  knight  and  then  a  baronet,  and  who,  after  keep- 
ing up  a  sumptuous  establishment,  and  after  losing  much 
money  by  unlucky  speculations,  was  still  able  to  bequeath  a  30 
large  fortune  to  his  family.  The  two  Vandeveldes,  natives 
of  Holland,  had  been  induced  by  English  liberality  to  settle 
here,  and  had  produced  for  the  king  and  his  nobles  some  of 
the   finest    sea-pieces    in    the   world.      Another   Dutchman, 


126  ENGLAND  IN  1685, 

Simon  Varelst,  painted  glorious  sunflowers  and  tulips  for 
prices  such  as  had  never  before  been  known.  Verrio,  a 
Neapolitan,  covered  ceilings  and  staircases  with  Gorgons  and 
Muses,  Nymphs  and  Satyrs,  Virtues  and  Vices,  Gods  quaffing 
5  nectar,  and  laureled  princes  riding  in  triumph.  The  income 
which  he  derived  from  his  performances  enabled  him  to  keep 
one  of  the  most  expensive  tables  in  England.  For  his  pieces 
at  Windsor  alone  he  received  seven  thousand  pounds,  a  sum 
then  sufficient  to  make  a  gentleman  of  moderate  wishes  per- 

lo  fectly  easy  for  life,  a  sum  greatly  exceeding  all  that  Dryden, 
during  a  literary  life  of  forty  years,  obtained  from  the 
booksellers.  Verrio's  chief  assistant  and  successor,  Lewis 
Laguerre,  came  from  France.  The  two  most  celebrated 
sculptors  of  that  day  were  also  foreigners.     Gibber,  whose 

15  pathetic  emblems  of  Fury  and  Melancholy  still  adorn  Bedlam, 
was  a  Dane.  Gibbons,  to  whose  graceful  fancy  and  delicate 
touch  many  of  our  palaces,  colleges,  and  churches  owe  their 
finest  decorations,  was  a  Dutchman.  Even  the  designs  for 
the  coin  were  made  by  French  medalists.     Indeed,  it  was 

20  not  till  the  reign  of  George  the  Second  that  our  country 
could  glory  in  a  great  painter,  and  George  the  Third  was  on 
the  throne  before  she  had  reason  to  be  proud  of  any  of  her 
sculptors. 

It  is  time   that  this  description   of    the   England  which 

25  Charles  the  Second  governed  should  draw  to  a  close.  Yet 
one  subject  of  the  highest  moment  still  remains  untouched. 
Nothing  has  as  yet  been  said  of  the  great  body  of  the  people, 
of  those  who  held  the  ploughs,  who  tended  the  oxen,  who 
toiled  at  the  looms  of  Norwich,  and  squared  the  Portland 

30  stone  for  Saint  Paul's.  Nor  can  very  much  be  said.  The 
most  numerous  class  is  precisely  the  class  respecting  which 
we  have  the  most  meagre  information.  In  those  times 
philanthropists  did  not  yet  regard  it  as  a  sacred  duty,  nor 
had  demagogues  yet  found  it  a  lucrative  trade,  to  expatiate 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  127 

on  the  distress  of  the  laborer.  History  was  too  much  occu- 
pied with  courts  and  camps  to  spare  a  line  for  the  hut  of  the 
peasant  or  for  the  garret  of  the  mechanic.  The  press  now 
often  sends  forth  in  a  day  a  greater  quantity  of  discussion 
and  declamation  about  the  condition  of  the  working  man  5 
than  was  published  during  the  twenty-eight  years  which 
elapsed  between  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution.  But 
it  would  be  a  great  error  to  infer  from  the  increase  of  com- 
plaint that  there  has  been  any  increase  of  misery. 

The  great  criterion  of  the  state  of  the  common  people  is  10 
the  amount  of  their  wages;  and  as  four-fifths  of  the  common 
people  were,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  employed  in  agri- 
culture, it  is  especially  important  to  ascertain  what  were  then 
the  wages  of  agricultural  industry.  On  this  subject  we  have 
the  means  of  arriving  at  conclusions  sufficiently  exact  for  15 
our  purpose. 

Sir  William  Petty,  whose  mere  assertion  carries  great 
weight,  informs  us  that  a  laborer  was  by  no  means  in  the 
lowest  state  who  received  for  a  day's  work  fourpence  with 
food  or  eightpence  without  food.  Four  shillings  a  week,  20 
therefore,  were,  according  to  Petty's  calculation,  fair  agri- 
cultural wages. 

That  this  calculation  was  not  remote  from  the  truth  we 
have  abundant  proof.  About  the  beginning  of  the  year  1685, 
the  justices  of  Warwickshire,  in  the  exercise  of  a  power  25 
intrusted  to  them  by  an  act  of  Elizabeth,  fixed,  at  their 
quarter  sessions,  a  scale  of  wages  for  their  county,  and  noti- 
fied that  every  employer  who  gave  more  than  the  authorized 
sum  and  every  working  man  who  received  more  would  be 
liable  to  punishment.  The  wages  of  the  common  agricultural  30 
laborer,  from  March  to  September,  they  fixed  at  the  precise 
sum  mentioned  by  Petty,  namely,  four  shillings  a  week  with- 
out food.  From  September  to  March  the  wages  were  to  be 
only  three  and  sixpence  a  week. 


128  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

But  in  that  age,  as  in  ours,  the  earnings  of  the  peasant 
were  very  different  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The 
wages  of  Warwickshire  were  probably  about  the  average,  and 
those  of  the  counties  near  the  Scottish  border  below  it.  But 
5  there  were  more  favored  districts.  In  the  same  year,  1685, 
a  gentleman  of  Devonshire,  named  Richard  Dunning,  pub- 
lished a  small  tract,  in  which  he  described  the  condition  of 
the  poor  of  that  county.  That  he  understood  his  subject 
well  it  is  impossible  to  doubt ;  for  a  few  months  later  his 

10  work  was  reprinted,  and  was,  by  the  magistrates  assembled 
in  quarter  sessions  at  Exeter,  strongly  recommended  to  the 
attention  of  all  parochial  officers.  According  to  him,  the 
wages  of  the  Devonshire  peasant  were,  without  food,  about 
five  shillings  a  week. 

15  Still  better  was  the  condition  of  the  laborer  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Bury  St.  Edmund's.  The  magistrates  of  Suffolk 
met  there  in  the  spring  of  1682  to  fix  a  rate  of  wages,  and 
resolved  that,  where  the  laborer  was  not  boarded,  he  should 
have  five  shillings  a  week  in  winter  and  six  in  summer. 

20  In  1 66 1  the  justices  at  Chelmsford  had  fixed  the  wages 
of  the  Essex  laborer,  who  was  not  boarded,  at  six  shillings  in 
winter  and  seven  in  summer.  This  seems  to  have  been  the 
highest  remuneration  given  in  the  kingdom  for  agricultural 
labor  between  the  Restoration  and  the  Revolution;  and  it 

25  is  to  be  observed  that,  in  the  year  in  which  this  order  was 
made,  the  necessaries  of  life  were  immoderately  dear.  Wheat 
was  at  seventy  shillings  the  quarter,  which  would  even  now 
be  considersd  as  almost  a  famine  price. 

These  facts  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  another  fact 

30  which  seems  to  deserve  consideration.  It  is  evident  that,  in 
a  country  where  no  man  can  be  compelled  to  become  a 
soldier,  the  ranks  of  an  army  cannot  be  filled  if  the  govern- 
ment offers  much  less  than  the  wages  of  common  rustic  labor. 
At  present  the  pay  and  beer  money  of  a  private  in  a  regiment 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  129 

of  the  line  amount  to  seven  shillings  and  sevenpence  a  week. 
This  stipend,  coupled  with  the  hope  of  a  pension,  does  not 
attract  the  English  youth  in  sufficient  numbers  ;  and  it  is 
found  necessary  to  supply  the  deficiency  by  enlisting  largely 
from  among  the  poorer  population  of  Munster  and  Connaught.  S 
The  pay  of  the  private  foot  soldier  in  1685  was  only  four 
shillings  and  eightpence  a  week;  yet  it  is  certain  that  the 
government  in  that  year  found  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  many 
thousands  of  English  recruits  at  very  short  notice.  The  pay 
of  the  private  foot  soldier  in  the  army  of  the  Commonwealth  10 
had  been  seven  shillings  a  week,  that  is  to  say,  as  much  as  a 
corporal  received  under  Charles  the  Second;  and  seven  shil- 
lings a  week  had  been  found  sufficient  to  fill  the  ranks  with 
men  decidedly  superior  to  the  generality  of  the  people.  On 
the  whole,  therefore,  it  seems  reasonable  to  conclude  that,  in  15 
the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  the  ordinary  wages  of  the 
peasant  did  not  exceed  four  shillings  a  week;  but  that,  in 
some  parts  of  the  kingdom,  five  shillings,  six  shillings,  and, 
during  the  summer  months,  even  seven  shillings  were  paid. 
At  present  a  district  where  a  laboring  man  earns  only  seven  20 
shillings  a  week  is  thought  to  be  in  a  state  shocking  to 
humanity.  The  average  is  very  much  higher;  and  in  pros- 
perous counties,  the  weekly  wages  of  husbandmen  amount 
to  twelve,  fourteen,  and  even  sixteen  shillings. 

The  remuneration  of  workmen  employed  in  manufactures  25 
has  always  been  higher  than  that  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil. 
In  the  year  1680  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons 
remarked  that  the  high  wages  paid  in  this  country  made  it 
impossible  for  our  textures  to  maintain  a  competition  with 
the  produce  of  the  Indian  looms.  An  English  mechanic,  he  30 
said,  instead  of  slaving  like  a  native  of  Bengal  for  a  piece 
of  copper,  exacted  a  shilling  a  day.  Other  evidence  is 
extant,  which  proves  that  a  shilling  a  day  was  the  pay  to 
which  the  English  manufacturer  then  thought  himself  en- 


130  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

titled,  but  that  he  was  often  forced  to  work  for  less.  The 
common  people  of  that  age  were  not  in  the  habit  of  meeting 
for  public  discussion  or  haranguing  or  of  petitioning  par- 
liament. No  newspaper  pleaded  their  cause.  It  was  in  rude 
5  rhyme  that  their  love  and  hatred,  their  exultation  and  their 
distress  found  utterance.  A  great  part  of  their  history  is  to 
be  learned  only  from  their  ballads.  One  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  the  popular  lays  chanted  about  the  streets  of  Norwich 
and  Leeds  in  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second  may  still  be 

10  read  on  the  original  broadside.  It  is  the  vehement  and 
bitter  cry  of  labor  against  capital.  It  describes  the  good  old 
times  when  every  artisan  employed  in  the  woolen  manufac- 
ture lived  as  well  as  a  farmer.  But  those  times  were  past. 
Sixpence  a  day  now  was  all  that  could  be  earned  by  hard 

IS  labor  at  the  loom.  If  the  poor  complained  that  they  could 
not  live  on  such  a  pittance,  they  were  told  that  they  were 
free  to  take  it  or  leave  it.  For  so  miserable  a  recompense 
were  the  producers  of  wealth  compelled  to  toil,  rising  early 
and  lying  down  late,  while  the  master  clothier,  eating,  sleep- 

2o  ing,  and  idling,  became  rich  by  their  exertions.  A  shilling 
a  day,  the  poet  declares,  is  what  the  weaver  would  have  if 
justice  were  done.*    We  may  therefore  conclude  that,  in  the 

*  This  ballad  is  in  the  British  Museum.      The  precise  year  is  not 
given,  but  the  imprimatur  of  Roger  Lestrange  fixes  the  date  sufficiently 
25  for  my  purpose.      I  will  quote  some  of  the  lines.      The  master  clothier 
is  introduced  speaking  as  follows: 

"  In  former  ages  we  used  to  give, 
So  that  our  workfolks  like  farmers  did  live; 
But  the  times  are  changed,  we  will  make  them  know. 


30  We  will  make  them  to  work  hard  for  sixpence  a  day, 

Though  a  shilling  they  deserve  if  they  had  their  just  pay; 
If  at  all  they  murmur  and  say,  'tis  too  small, 
We  bid  them  choose  whether  they'll  work  at  all. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  131 

generation  which  preceded  the  Revolution,  a  workman  em- 
ployed in  the  great  staple  manufacture  of  England  thought 
himself  fairly  paid  if  he  gained  six  shillings  a  week. 

It  may  here  be  noticed  that  the  practice  of  setting  chil- 
dren  prematurely  to  work,  a  practice  which   the  state,  the    s 
legitimate  protector  of  those  who  cannot  protect  themselves, 
has,  in  our  time,  wisely  and  humanely  interdicted,  prevailed 
in  the  seventeenth  century  to  an  extent  which,  when  com- 
pared with  the  extent  of  the  manufacturing  system,  seems 
almost  incredible.     At  Norwich,  the  chief  seat  of  the  cloth-  lo 
ing  trade,  a  little  creature  of  six  years  old  was  thought  fit 
for  labor.     Several  writers  of  that  time,  and  among  them 
some  who  were  considered  as  eminently  benevolent,  mention, 
with  exultation,  the  fact  that  in  that  single  city  boys  and 
girls  of  tender  age  created  wealth  exceeding  what  was  nee-  15 
essary  for  their  own  subsistence  by  twelve  thousand  pounds 
a  year.     The  more  carefully  we  examine  the  history  of  the 
past,  the  more  reason  shall  we  find  to  dissent  from  those 
who  imagine  that  our  age  has  been  fruitful   of  new   social 
evils.      The  truth  is   that   the   evils  are,  with   scarcely    an  20 
exception,  old.     That  which  is  new  is  the  intelligence  which 
discerns  and  the  humanity  which  remedies  them. 

When  we  pass  from  the  weavers  of  cloth  to  a  different 
class  of  artisans,  our  inquiries  will  still  lead  us  to  nearly  the 
same  conclusions.  During  several  generations,  the  Commis-  25 
sioners  of  Greenwich  Hospital  have  kept  a  register  of  the 
wages  paid  to  different  classes  of  workmen  who  have  been 
employed  in  the  repairs  of  the  building.    From  this  valuable 

And  thus  we  do  gain  all  our  wealth  and  estate, 

By  many  poor  men  that  work  early  and  late.  30 

Then  hey  for  the  clothing  trade !     It  goes  on  brave. 

We  scorn  for  to  toyl  and  moyl,  nor  yet  to  slave. 

Our  workmen  do  work  hard,  but  we  live  at  ease, 

We  go  when  we  will,  and  we  come  when  we  please." 


132  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

record  it  appears  that,  in  the  course  of  a  hundred  and  twenty 
years,  the  daily  earnings  of  the  bricklayer  have  risen  from 
half  a  crown  to  four  and  tenpence,  those  of  the  mason 
from  half  a  crown  to  five  and  threepence,  those  of  the  car- 
5  penter  from  half  a  crown  to  five  and  fivepence,  and  those  of 
the  plumber  from  three  shillings  to  five  and  sixpence. 

It  seems  clear,  therefore,  that  the  wages  of  labor,  esti- 
mated in  money,  were,  in  1685,  not  more  than  half  of  what 
they  now  are ;  and  there  were  few  articles  important  to  the 

10  working  man  of  which  the  price  was  not,  in  1685,  more 
than  half  of  what  it  now  is.  Beer  was  undoubtedly  much 
cheaper  in  that  age  than  at  present.  Meat  was  also  cheaper, 
but  was  still  so  dear  that  there  were  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  families  who  scarcely  knew  the  taste  of  it.*     In  the  cost 

15  of  wheat  there  has  been  very  little  change.  The  average 
price  of  the  quarter,  during  the  last  twelve  years  of  Charles 
the  Second,  was  fifty  shillings.  Bread,  therefore,  such  as  is 
now  given  to  the  inmates  of  a  workhouse,  was  then  seldom 
seen,  even  on  the  trencher  of  a  yeoman  or  of  a  shopkeeper. 

20  The  great  majority  of  the  nation  lived  almost  entirely  on 
rye,  barley,  and  oats. 

The  produce  of  tropical  countries,  the  produce  of  the 
mines,  the  produce  of  machinery,  was  positively  dearer  than 
at  present.     Among  the  commodities  for  which  the  laborer 

25  would  have  had  to  pay  higher  in  1685  than  his  posterity  pay 
in  1848  were  sugar,  salt,  coals,  candles,  soap,  shoes,  stock- 
ings, and  generally  all  articles  of  clothing  and  all  articles  of 
bedding.  It  may  be  added  that  the  old  coats  and  blankets 
would  have  been,  not  only  more  costly,  but  less  serviceable 

30  than  the  modern  fabrics. 

*  King  in  his  Natural  and  Political  Conclusions  roughly  estimated 
the  common  people  of  England  at  880,000  families.  Of  these  families 
440,000,  according  to  him,  ate  animal  food  twice  a  week.  The  remain- 
ing 440,000  ate  it  not  at  all,  or  at  most  not  oftener  than  once  a  week. 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  133 

It  must  be  remembered  that  those  laborers  who  were  able 
to  maintain  themselves  and  their  families  by  means  of  wages 
were  not  the  most  necessitous  members  of  the  community. 
Beneath  them  lay  a  large  class  which  could  not  subsist  with- 
out some  aid  from  the  parish.  There  can  hardly  be  a  more  s 
important  test  of  the  condition  of  the  common  people  than 
the  ratio  which  this  class  bears  to  the  whole  society.  At 
present  the  men,  women,  and  children  who  receive  relief 
are,  in  bad  years,  one-tenth  of  the  inhabitants  of  England 
and,  in  good  years,  one-thirteenth.  Gregory  King  esti-  lo 
mated  them  in  his  time  at  more  than  a  fifth;  and  this  esti- 
mate, which  all  our  respect  for  his  authority  will  scarcely 
prevent  us  from  calling  extravagant,  was  pronounced  by 
Davenant  eminently  judicious. 

We  are  not  quite  without  the  means  of  forming  an  esti-  15 
mate  for  ourselves.     The   poor  rate  was  undoubtedly  the 
heaviest  tax  borne  by  our  ancestors  in  those  days.     It  was 
computed,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  at  near  seven 
hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year,  much  more  than  the  prod- 
uce either  of  the  excise  or  of  the  customs,  and  little  less  20 
than  half  the  entire  revenue  of  the  crown.     The  poor  rate 
went  on  increasing  rapidly,  and  appears  to  have  risen  in  a 
short  time  to  between  eight  and  nine  hundred  thousand  a 
year,  that  is  to  say,  to  one-sixth  of  what  it  now  is.     The 
population  was  then  less  than  a  third  of  what  it  now  is.    The  25 
minimum  of  wages,  estimated  in  money,  was  half  of  what  it 
now  is;  and  we  can  therefore  hardly  suppose  that  the  aver- 
age allowance  made  to  a  pauper  can  have  been  more  than 
half  of  what  it  now  is.     It  seems  to  follow  that  the  propor- 
tion of  the  English  people  which  received  parochial  relief  3° 
then   must  have  been    larger   than    the    proportion  which 
receives  relief  now.     It  is  good  to  speak  on  such  questions 
with  diffidence;  but  it  has  certainly  never  yet  been  proved 
that  pauperism  was  a  less  heavy  burden  or  a  less  serious 


134  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

social  evil  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century 
than  it  has  been  in  our  own  time. 

In  one  respect  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  progress  of 
civilization  has  diminished  the  physical  comforts  of  a  por- 
5  tion  of  the  poorest  class.  It  has  already  been  mentioned 
that,  before  the  Revolution,  many  thousands  of  square  miles, 
now  enclosed  and  cultivated,  were  marsh,  forest,  and  heath. 
Of  this  wild  land  much  was,  by  law,  common,  and  much  of 
what  was  not  common  by  law  was  worth  so  little  that  the 

lo  proprietors  suffered  it  to  be  common  in  fact.  In  such  a 
tract,  squatters  and  trespassers  were  tolerated  to  an  extent 
now  unknown.  The  peasant  who  dwelt  there  could,  at  little 
or  no  charge,  procure  occasionally  some  palatable  addition 
to  his  hard  fare,  and  provide  himself  with  fuel  for  the  winter. 

IS  He  kept  a  flock  of  geese  on  what  is  now  an  orchard  rich 
with  apple  blossoms.  He  snared  wild  fowl  on  the  fen  which 
has  long  since  been  drained  and  divided  into  corn-fields  and 
turnip-fields.  He  cut  turf  among  the  furze-bushes  on  the 
moor,  which  is  now  a  meadow  bright  with  clover  and  re- 

20  nowned  for  butter  and  cheese.  The  progress  of  agriculture 
and  the  increase  of  population  necessarily  deprived  him  of 
these  privileges.  But  against  this  disadvantage  a  long  list 
of  advantages  is  to  be  set  off.  Of  the  blessings  which  civi- 
lization and  philosophy  bring  with  them  a  large  proportion 

25  is  common  to  all  ranks,  and  would,  if  withdrawn,  be  missed 
as  painfully  by  the  laborer  as  by  the  peer.  The  market- 
place which  the  rustic  can  now  reach  with  his  cart  in  an 
hour  was,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  a  day's  journey 
from  him.     The  street  which   now  affords  to   the   artisan, 

30  during  the  whole  night,  a  secure,  a  convenient,  and  a  bril- 
liantly lighted  walk  was,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  so 
dark  after  sunset  that  he  would  not  have  been  able  to  see 
his  hand,  so  ill  paved  that  he  would  have  run  constant  risk 
of  breaking  his  neck,  and  so  ill  watched  that  he  would  have 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  135 

been  in  imminent  danger  of  being  knocked  down  and  plun- 
dered of  his  small  earnings.  Every  bricklayer  who  falls 
from  a  scaffold,  every  sweeper  of  a  crossing  who  is  run  over 
by  a  carriage  now  may  have  his  wounds  dressed  and  his 
limbs  set  with  a  skill  such  as,  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  5 
ago,  all  the  wealth  of  a  great  lord  like  Ormond  or  of  a  mer- 
chant prince  like  Clayton  could  not  have  purchased.  Some 
frightful  diseases  have  been  extirpated  by  science,  and  some 
have  been  banished  by  police.  The  term  of  human  life  has 
been  lengthened  over  the  whole  kingdom,  and  especially  in  10 
the  towns.  The  year  1685  was  not  accounted  sickly;  yet 
in  the  year  1685  more  than  one  in  twenty-three  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  capital  died.  At  present,  only  one  inhabi- 
tant of  the  capital  in  forty  dies  annually.  The  difference  in 
salubrity  between  the  London  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  15 
the  London  of  the  seventeenth  century  is  very  far  greater 
than  the  difference  between  London  in  an  ordinary  season 
and  London  in  the  cholera. 

Still  more  important  is  the  benefit  which  all  orders  of 
society,  and  especially  the  lower  orders,  have  derived  from  20 
the  mollifying  influence  of  civilization  on  the  national  char- 
acter. The  groundwork  of  that  character  has  indeed  been 
the  same  through  many  generations,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  groundwork  of  the  character  of  an  individual  maybe  said 
to  be  the  same  when  he  is  a  rude  and  thoughtless  schoolboy  25 
and  when  he  is  a  refined  and  accomplished  man.  It  is 
pleasing  to  reflect  that  the  public  mind  of  England  has  soft- 
ened while  it  has  ripened,  and  that  we  have,  in  the  course 
of  ages,  become  not  only  a  wiser,  but  also  a  kinder  people. 
There  is  scarcely  a  page  of  the  history  or  lighter  literature  30 
of  the  seventeenth  century  which  does  not  contain  some 
proof  that  our  ancestors  were  less  humane  than  their  pos- 
terity. The  discipline  of  workshops,  of  schools,  of  private 
families,  though  not  more  efficient  than  at  present,  was  infi- 


136  ENGLAND   IN  1685. 

nitely  harsher.     Masters,  well  born  and  bred,  were  in  the . 
habit  of  beating  their  servants.     Pedagogues  knew  no  way 
of  imparting  knowledge  but  by  beating  their  pupils.     Hus- 
bands, of  decent  station,  were  not  ashamed  to  beat  their 

5  wives.  The  implacability  of  hostile  factions  was  such  as  we 
can  scarcely  conceive.  Whigs  were  disposed  to  murmur 
because  Stafford^**  was  suffered  to  die  without  seeing  his 
bowels  burned  before  his  face.  Tories  reviled  and  insulted 
Russell  ^^^  as  his  coach  passed  from  the  Tower  to  the  scaffold 

lo  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  As  little  mercy  was  shown  by  the 
populace  to  sufferers  of  an  humbler  rank.  If  an  offender 
was  put  into  the  pillory,  it  was  well  if  he  escaped  with  life 
from  the  shower  of  brickbats  and  paving  stones.  If  he  was 
tied  to  the  cart's  tail,  the  crowd  pressed  round  him,  implor- 

15  ing  the  hangman  to  give  it  to  the  fellow  well,  and  make  him 
howl.  Gentlemen  arranged  parties  of  pleasure  to  Bridewell 
on  court  days,  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  wretched  women 
who  beat  hemp  there  whipped.  A  man  pressed  to  death 
for  refusing  to  plead,  a  woman  burned  for  coining  excited 

20  less  sympathy  than  is  now  felt  for  a  galled  horse  or  an  over- 
driven ox.  Fights,  compared  with  which  a  boxing  match  is 
a  refined  and  humane  spectacle,  were  among  the  favorite 
diversions  of  a  large  part  of  the  town.  Multitudes  as- 
sembled to  see  gladiators  hack  each  other  to  pieces  with 

25  deadly  weapons,  and  shouted  with  delight  when  one  of  the 
combatants  lost  a  finger  or  an  eye.  The  prisons  were  hells 
on  earth,  seminaries  of  every  crime  and  of  every  disease. 
At  the  assizes  the  lean  and  yellow  culprits  brought  with 
them  from  their  cells  to  the  dock  an  atmosphere  of  stench 

30  and  pestilence  which  sometimes  avenged  them  signally  on 
bench,  bar,  and  jury.  But  on  all  this  misery  society  looked 
with  profound  indifference."^  Nowhere  could  be  found  that 
sensitive  and  restless  compassion  which  has,  in  our  time,  ex- 
tended a  powerful  protection  to  the  factory  child,  to  the 


ENGLAND  IN  1685.  137 

Hindoo  widow,  to  the  negro  slave,  which  pries  into  the  stores 
and  water-casks  of  every  emigrant  ship,  which  winces  at 
every  lash  laid  on  the  back  of  a  drunken  soldier,  which  will 
not  suffer  the  thief  in  the  hulks  to  be  ill  fed  or  overworked, 
and  which  has  repeatedly  endeavored  to  save  the  life  even  5 
of  the  murderer.  It  is  true  that  compassion  ought,  like  all 
other  feelings,  to  be  under  the  government  of  reason,  and 
has,  for  want  of  such  government,  produced  some  ridiculous 
and  some  deplorable  effects.  But  the  more  we  study  the 
annals  of  the  past,  the  more  shall  we  rejoice  that  we  live  in  10 
a  merciful  age,  in  an  age  in  which  cruelty  is  abhorred,  and 
in  which  pain,  even  when  deserved,  is  inflicted  reluctantly 
and  from  a  sense  of  duty.  Every  class  doubtless  has  gained 
largely  by  this  great  moral  change;  but  the  class  which  has 
gained  most  is  the  poorest,  the  most  dependent,  and  the  15 
most  defenceless. 

The  general  effect  of  the  evidence  which  has  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  reader  seems  hardly  to  admit  of  doubt.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  evidence,  many  will  still  image  to  themselves  the 
England  of  the  Stuarts  as  a  more  pleasant  country  than  the  20 
England  in  which  we  live.  It  may  at  first  sight  seem  strange 
that  society,  while  constantly  moving  forward  with  eager 
speed,  should  be  constantly  looking  backward  with  tender 
regret.  But  these  two  propensities,  inconsistent  as  they  may 
appear,  can  easily  be  resolved  into  the  same  principle.  Both  25 
spring  from  our  impatience  of  the  state  in  which  we  actually 
are.  That  impatience,  while  it  stimulates  us  to  surpass  pre- 
ceding generations,  disposes  us  to  overrate  their  happiness. 
It  is,  in  some  sense,  unreasonable  and  ungrateful  in  us  to  be 
constantly  discontented  with  a  condition  which  is  constantly  30 
improving.  But,  in  truth,  there  is  constant  improvement  pre- 
cisely because  there  is  constant  discontent.  If  we  were  per- 
.  fectly  satisfied  with  the  present,  we  should  cease  to  contrive, 
to  labor,  and  to  save  with  a  view  to  the  future.     And  it  is 


138  ENGLAND  IN  1685. 

natural  that,  being  dissatisfied  with  the  present,  we  should 
form  a  too  favorable  estimate  of  the  past. 

In  truth  we  are  under  a  deception  similar  to  that  which 
misleads  the  traveler  in  the  Arabian  desert.  Beneath  the 
5  caravan  all  is  dry  and  bare  ;  but  far  in  advance  and  far  in 
the  rear  is  the  semblance  of  refreshing  waters.  The  pilgrims 
hasten  forward  and  find  nothing  but  sand  where,  an  hour 
before,  they  had  seen  a  lake.  They  turn  their  eyes  and  see 
a  lake  where,   an   hour  before,   they  were  toiling   through 

10  sand.  A  similar  illusion  seems  to  haunt  nations  through 
every  stage  of  the  long  progress  from  poverty  and  barbarism 
to  the  highest  degrees  of  opulence  and  civilization.  But  if 
we  resolutely  chase  the  mirage  backward,  we  shall  find  it 
recede  before  us  into  the  regions  of  fabulous  antiquity.     It 

IS  is  now  the  fashion  to  place  the  golden  age  of  England  in 
times  when  noblemen  were  destitute  of  comforts  the  want 
of  which  would  be  intolerable  to  a  modern  footman,  when 
farmers  and  shopkeepers  breakfasted  on  loaves  the  very 
sight  of  which  would  raise  a  riot  in  a  modern  workhouse, 

2o  when  men  died  faster  in  the  purest  country  air  than  they 
now  die  in  the  most  pestilential  lanes  of  our  towns,  and  when 
men  died  faster  in  the  lanes  of  our  towns  than  they  now  die 
on  the  coast  of  Guiana.  We  too  shall,  in  our  turn,  be  out- 
stripped, and  in  our  turn  be  envied.     It  may  well  be,  in  the 

25  twentieth  century,  that  the  peasant  of  Dorsetshire  may  think 
himself  miserably  paid  with  fifteen  shillings  a  week;  that  the 
carpenter  at  Greenwich  may  receive  ten  shillings  a  day;  that 
laboring  men  may  be  as  little  used  to  dine  without  meat  as 
they  now  are  to  eat  rye  bread;  that  sanitary  police  and  medi- 

30  cal  discoveries  may  have  added  several  more  years  to  the 
average  length  of  human  life;  that  numerous  comforts  and 
luxuries  which  are  now  unknown,  or  confined  to  a  few,  may 
be  within  the  reach  of  every  diligent  and  thrifty  working 
man.     And  yet  it  may  then  be  the  mode  to  assert  that  the 


ENGLAND  IN  1686.  339 

increase  of  wealth  and  the  progress  of  science  have  benefited 
the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many,  and  to  talk  of  the  reign 
of  Queen  Victoria  as  the  time  when  England  was  truly  merry 
England,  when  all  classes  were  bound  together  by  brotherly 
sympathy,  when  the  rich  did  not  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor, 
and  when  the  poor  did  not  envy  the  splendor  of  the  richy 


NOTES. 


This  account,  which  is  the  third  chapter  of  Macaulay's  "  History  of 
England,"  is  a  general  statement  of  the  condition  of  the  country,  not  only 
in  the  year  1685,  but  during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  It  is  of  especial 
interest  when  contrasted  with  the  present  century  on  the  one  hand  or  with 
the  time  of  Elizabeth  on  the  other.  A  book  like  Huxley's  "  Advance  of 
Science"  gives  a  view  of  England  in  the  middle  of  this  century,  while 
Froude's  "  English  Seamen  "  shows  much  of  the  condition  of  the  kingdom 
in  the  sixteenth. 

I.  Charles  II  returned  to  England  and  took  possession  of  the  throne 
that  had  been  his  father's,  in  1660.  This  is  called  the  Restoration.  He 
died  in  1685,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  brother  under  the  title  of  James  II. 
2.  The  Plantagenets  were  Henry  II,  11 54-1 189;  Richard  I,  1189-1199; 
John,  1199-1216;  Henry  HI,  1216-1272;  Edward  I,  1272-1307;  Edward 
II,  1307-1327;  Edward  HI,  1327-1377 ;  Richard  II,  1377-1399-  The 
Tudors  were  Henry  VII,  1 48 5-1 509;  Henry  VIII,  1 509-1 547  ;  Edward  VI, 
1 547-1 553;  Mary  (called  Bloody),  1 553-1 559;  Elizabeth,  1 559-1603.  The 
Stuarts  were  James  I,  1603-1625;  Charles  I,  1625-1649;  Charles  II,  1660- 
1685;  James  II,  1685-1701.*  The  passage  amounts  to  the  statement 
that  the  wealth  of  England  was  greater  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  cen- 
turies than  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fourteenth ;  greater  in  the  seventeenth 
than  in  the  sixteenth. 

3.  The  Long  Parliament  assembled  in  1640,  and  continued  through  the 
remaining  years  of  Charles  I,  through  the  Commonwealth  and  Protecto- 
rate, being  dissolved  only  in  the  year  of  the  Restoration,  1660. 

4.  The  Great  Plague  devastated  London  in  1665.  A  hundred  thou- 
sand persons  are  said  to  have  died  of  it  in  six  months.  In  1666  the  Great 
Fire  burned  September  2-6,  destroying  eighty-nine  churches,  including 
St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  and  more  than  thirteen  hundred  dwellings,  —  two- 
thirds  of  the  entire  city  in  all. 

5.  A  clerk  whose  duty  it  is  to  record  the  acts  of  a  legislative  body. 

="'  Throughout  these  notes  the  dates  in  the  case  of  sovereigns  are  those  of  the  beginning 
and  end  of  reign. 


142  NOTES. 

6.  Written  in  1848. 

7.  Moss-troopers,  a  term  applied  to  the  maurauders  who  lived  near  the 
borders  of  England  and  Scotland,  plundering  across  the  line.  The  name 
comes  trom  the  mosses  or  bogs  through  which  they  made  their  way  by 
paths  known  only  to  themselves. 

8.  George  III,  1 760-1820. 

9.  "  The  Duke  [of  Northumberland]  tells  me  his  people  in  Keeldar 
were  all  quite  wild  the  first  time  his  father  went  up  to  shoot  there.  The 
women  had  no  other  dress  than  a  bed-gown  and  petticoat.  The  men  were 
savage  and  could  hardly  be  brought  to  rise  from  the  heath,  either  from  sul- 
lenness  or  fear.  They  sang  a  wild  tune,  the  burden  of  which  was  Ourina, 
ourina,  mirina.  The  females  sang,  the  men  danced  round,  and  at  a  cer- 
tain part  of  the  tune  they  drew  their  dirks,  which  they  always  wore."  — 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  "  Journal,"  October  7,  1827. 

10.  Hearth-money,  or  chimney-money,  was  a  tax  of  a  crown  for  each 
chimney  in  a  house. 

11.  The  Cabal  (1667-1673)  was  the  name  given  to  a  ministry  formed 
in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  The  word  means  a  secret  committee,  and, 
rather  curiously,  the  initials  of  the  members  of  this  ministry  formed  the 
word :  Clifford,  Arlington,  Buckingham,  Ashley-Cooper  (Lord  Shaftes- 
bury), and  Lauderdale.  They  agreed  in  wishing  to  strengthen  the  power 
of  the  king.  Cabal  has  since  their  time,  in  the  words  of  Macaulay,  "  never 
been  used  except  as  a  term  of  reproach." 

12.  Thomas  Osborne,  afterward  Duke  of  Leeds,  was  successively  Treas- 
urer, Privy  Councillor,  and  Lord  High  Treasurer  under  Charles  II,  being  at 
the  time  Earl  of  Danby.  He  was  afterwards  Prime  Minister  under  William. 
He  was  twice  impeached  for  corruption,  but  managed  to  escape  conviction, 
although  it  was  proved  that  he  had  received  a  bribe  of  5500  guineas  from 
the  East  India  Company.     He  died  in  171 2. 

13.  The  Revolution.  The  expulsion  of  James  II,  and  the  seating  of 
William  and  Mary  on  the  throne  in  1 688-1 689. 

14.  Henry  IV  of  France,  founder  of  the  Bourbon  dynasty,  1 589-1610. 
Philip  II  of  Spain,  1 556-1 598,  husband  of  Mary,  Queen  of  England. 

15.  Parma,  Duke  of,  Alessandro  Farnese,  general  of  Philip  II  in  the 
Netherlands.     Died,  1592. 

16.  Spinola,  Spanish  general.     Died,  1630. 

17.  Richelieu,  Cardinal  de.  Prime  Minister  of  Louis  XIII  of  France. 
Died,  1642. 

18.  Fairfax,  Lord  Thomas,  English  Parliamentary  general  under  Crom- 
well. Died,  1 67 1.  Cromwell,  Oliver,  Puritan  general,  at  the  head  of  the 
government  from  the  defeat  of  Charles  I,  and  Lord   Protector,  1 653-1 658. 


NOTES.  143 

19.  Vauban,  French  military  engineer.     Died,  1707. 

20.  Louis  XIV  of  France,  called  the  Great,  1643-17 15. 

21.  The  name  Cavaliers  was  given  to  the  party  of  Charles  I,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  Roundheads,  or  Puritans.  In  the  civil  war  which  resulted 
in  the  execution  of  Charles  I,  the  soldiers  of  Cromwell  committed  many 
excesses  upon  the  possessions  of  the  Royalists  and  upon  the  established 
churches. 

22.  Fifth  Monarchy  men  were  an  extreme  sect  of  the  period  of  the 
Puritan  Revolution,  largely  found  in  Cromwell's  army,  and  believing  that 
his  government  was  the  beginning  of  the  "  Fifth  Monarchy,"  in  which 
Christ  was  to  return  to  the  earth.  The  other  four  monarchies  were  the 
Assyrian,  Persian,  Grecian,  and  Roman. 

23.  Maurice  of  Nassau,  Prince  of  Orange,  son  of  William  the  Silent, 
Dutch  general.     Died,  1625. 

24.  Ossory,  Lord,  Irish  general. 

25.  Naseby,  battle  of.  One  of  the  decisive  engagements  in  the  struggle 
of  Charles  I  against  Parliament.  It  was  fought  on  July  14,  1645,  '^'^^ 
resulted  in  the  complete  victory  of  the  Parliamentary  troops  under  Fairfax 
and  Cromwell. 

26.  Five  years  later,  September  3,  1650,  the  Parliamentarians  under 
Cromwell,  Monk,  and  Lambert  defeated  the  Scots,  the  champions  of 
Charles  II,  at  Dunbar.  It  was  on  this  occasion,  when  the  sun  scattered 
the  mist  and  showed  the  rout  of  the  enemy,  that  Cromwell  uttered  his 
famous  quotation :  "  Let  God  arise  and  let  His  enemies  be  scattered." 

27.  The  Spanish  Armada  was  the  mighty  fleet  sent  out  by  Philip  II  of 
Spain  against  England  in  1588.  Broken  by  the  English  fleet  in  the  Chan- 
nel, it  was  afterwards  scattered  by  storm  and  completely  destroyed.  An 
excellent  account  of  the  whole  matter  will  be  found  in  Froude's  "  English 
Seamen  in  the  Sixteenth  Century." 

28.  Blake,  Robert,  English  admiral,  1 597-1657. 

29.  Pepys,  Samuel,  Secretary  of  the  English  Navy  under  Charles  II. 
He  left  a  diary  in  shorthand,  which  has  since  been  deciphered,  and  which 
is  one  of  the  most  famous  works  of  its  kind  in  existence.  It  gives  a  very 
vivid  and  intimate  picture  of  the  court  of  Charles  II. 

30.  Cimon  was  an  Athenian  commander,  son  of  Miltiades.  Died, 
449  B.C.  Lysander,  a  Spartan  commander,  killed,  395  B.C.  Pompey,  a 
Roman  general,  triumvir  with  Caesar  and  Crassus,  murdered  in  Egypt, 
48  B.C.     Agrippa,  Roman  commander,  died,  12  B.C. 

31.  Flodden  Field,  1513.  James  IV  of  Scotland  overwhelmed  by  the 
English. 

32.  Jarnac,  a  town  in  western  France,  where  in  1569  the  Huguenots, 


144  NOTES. 

the  French  Protestants,  were  defeated  by  the  troops  of  Charles  IX,  com- 
manded by  his  brother,  afterward  Henry  III.  Moncontour,  another  battle 
where  the  Huguenots  were  again  defeated  in  the  same  year. 

33.  Louis,  Prince  of  Cond^. 

34.  John  of  Austria,  Don,  Spanish  commander,  half-brother  of  Philip 
II.     Died,  1578. 

35.  Charles  Howard,  English  admiral.     Died,  1624. 

36.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  favorite  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  navigator,  dis- 
coverer, and  author.  His  greatest  work  was  a  "  History  of  the  World," 
written  in  the  Tower,  and  left  unfinished.     Beheaded  under  James  I,  1618. 

37.  Two  generals  in  the  Parliamentary  army  in  the  struggle  against 
Charles  I. 

38.  Formerly  the  Thames  was  much  used  as  a  thoroughfare,  and  the 
palace  of  Whitehall  had  a  boat-landing  on  the  river. 

39.  Hampton  Court,  a  palace  originally  built  by  Cardinal  Wolsey,  is  a 
dozen  miles  southwest  of  London.  It  was  by  him  presented  to  Henry 
VIII.  It  has  since  been  occupied  by  Cromwell,  the  Stuarts,  William  III, 
and  the  first  two  Georges.  It  contains  a  fine  collection  of  pictures,  and  is 
much  visited. 

40.  Sir  John  Narborough,  English  naval  officer  and  discoverer.  He 
suppressed  the  pirates  of  Tripoli  in  1675.  Died,  1688  Sir  Cloudesley 
Shovel,  English  admiral.     Drowned,  1707. 

41.  Smollett,  Tobias  George,  English  novelist  and  historian,  1721-1771. 
His  best-known  novels  are  "  The  Adventures  of  Roderick  Random,"  "  The 
Adventures  of  Peregrine  Pickle,"  and  "The  Expedition  of  Humphry 
Clinker."     His  novels  are  full  of  vigor  and  movement,  but  are  very  coarse. 

42.  "  Poundage  ...  an  allowance  or  abatement  of  twelve  Pence  in  the 
Pound,  upon  the  receipt  of  a  Summ  of  Money."  —  E.  Phillips,  1706. 

43.  The  groom  of  the  stole  is  the  first  lord  of  the  bedchamber  in  the 
English  royal  household. 

44.  Salisbury  Plain,  an  immense  rolling  down  near  the  city  of  Salis- 
bury.   In  the  midst  of  it  stands  the  famous  ancient  ruin  called  Stonehenge. 

45.  John  Evelyn,  in  his  Diary,  writes,  June  2,  1676:  "  I  went  with  my 
Lord  Chamberlaine  to  see  a  garden  in  Enfield  town ;  thence  to  see  Mr. 
Sec.  Coventry's  lodge  in  the  Chace.  It  is  a  very  pretty  place,  the  house 
commodious,  the  gardens  handsome,  and  our  entertainment  very  free, 
there  being  none  but  my  Lord  and  myself.  That  which  I  most  wondered 
at  was  that  in  the  compass  of  25  miles,  yet  within  14  of  London,  there  is 
not  a  house,  barn,  church,  or  building,  beside  three  lodges.  To  this  lodge 
are  three  great  ponds  and  some  few  enclousures,  the  rest  a  solitary  desert, 
yet  stored  with  not  less  than  3000  deer." 


NOTES.  14S 

46.  Queen  Anne,  the  daughter  of  James  II,  reigned  from  1702  until 
1714. 

47.  As  George  II  came  to  the  throne  in  1727,  the  time  to  the  writing 
of  this  history  would  be  practically  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  years. 

48.  A  book  in  which  were  entered  the  expenses  of  the  household  of  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland  in  the  fifteenth  century. 

49.  The  Rock  of  Gibraltar  and  the  two  hills  of  the  African  side  of  the 
strait,  so  called  from  the  old  belief  that  Hercules  set  them  up  to  mark  the 
western  limit  of  his  travels  when  he  went  for  the  apples  of  Hesperides. 

50.  Two  of  the  mistresses  of  Charles  II.  To  both  of  them  he  gave 
large  sums.  Nell  Gwynn  was  a  popular  actress,  and  the  last  words  of  the 
king  were :  "  Don't  let  poor  Nelly  starve." 

51.  Glastonbury  Abbey  is  said  to  be  the  only  religious  foundation  in 
England  which  has  kept  its  existence  from  Roman  times.  It  was  tradition- 
ally said  to  be  the  burial  place  of  King  Arthur  and  of  St.  Patrick,  as  well 
as  undoubtedly  containing  the  tomb  of  St.  Dunstan.  It  was  up  to  the 
Reformation  a  see  of  great  wealth  and  importance.  Its  last  abbot  was  by 
order  of  Henry  VIII  hanged. 

52.  Reading,  the  chief  town  in  Berkshire,  comes  into  history  with  a 
battle  in  871,  in  which  Ethelred,  the  father  of  Alfred,  was  defeated. 
Henry  I  founded  here  a  great  monastery  in  which  he  was  afterward  buried. 
The  see  was,  like  Glastonbury,  of  great  importance,  wealth,  and  influence, 
until  the  monasteries  were  overthrown  under  Henry  VIII. 

53.  "William  of  Wykeham  was  Bishop  of  Winchester  and  Chancellor 
under  Edward  III.  He  was  driven  from  court  on  false  charges,  but  after- 
ward restored  to  honor.  He  retired  in  1391  to  private  life,  and  founded 
New  College,  Oxford.  He  was  a  man  so  blameless  of  life  that  a  contem- 
porary said  of  him  that  to  attempt  to  find  a  fault  in  him  was  like  endeavor- 
ing to  find  a  knot  in  a  rush.     Died,  1404. 

54.  WilUam  of  Waynflete  was  also  Bishop  of  Winchester  and  Chan- 
cellor ;  but  in  the  fifteenth  century.  He  founded  Magdalen  College,  Ox- 
ford.    He  was  the  warm  friend  of  Henry  VI.     Died,  i486. 

55.  The  high  intellectual  and  moral  worth  of  the  men  by  whom  Queen 
Elizabeth  was  surrounded  was  by  no  means  the  least  brilliant  feature  of 
her  time.  Wilham  Cecil,  Lord  Burleigh,  was  Secretary  of  State  under 
Edward  IV,  and  reassumed  the  office  almost  immediately  when  Elizabeth 
succeeded  Mary.  For  forty  years  he  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  astute 
Elizabeth,  and  richly  deserved  it.  He  died  in  1 598.  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon, 
the  father  of  Sir  Francis,  was  Elizabeth's  Lord-Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal. 
His  son  described  him  as  "  a  plain  man,  direct  and  constant,  without  all 
finesse  and   doubleness."     He  died   1579.     Roger  Ascham  was  tutor  to 


146  NOTES. 

Elizabeth,  and  an  author  of  learning  and  distinction.  He  was  one  of  the 
earliest  English  Greek  scholars.  His  best-known  books  are  "  The  Schole- 
master  "  and  "  Toxophilus,"  the  latter  a  treatise  on  archery.  Died,  156S. 
Sir  Thomas  Smith  was  a  zealous  friend  of  the  Reformation,  was  Secretary 
of  State  under  Edward  VI,  and  an  associate  of  Lord  Burleigh  under  Eliza- 
beth. He  was  sent  upon  important  missions.  Died,  1577.  Sir  Walter 
Mildmay,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and  founder  of  Emanuel  College, 
Cambridge.  Died,  1589.  Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  called  "  the  most  pene- 
trating statesman  of  his  time,"  was  of  sagacity  and  insight  so  great  that  in 
the  next  century  it  was  said :  "  He  saw  every  man  and  none  saw  him." 
With  every  opportunity  of  amassing  wealth  by  corrupt  means  he  died  so 
poor  as  hardly  to  leave  enough  for  his  burial.  He  was  one  of  the  instru- 
ments in  the  conviction  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  of  treason.     Died,  1590. 

56.  Matthew  Parker,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  died  1575.  Edmund 
Grindal,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  died  1 583.  After  the  Reformation  the 
revenues  of  the  English  prelates  were  greatly  reduced,  and  under  Elizabeth 
and  her  successors  the  prelates  had  no  opportunity  of  amassing  large  for- 
tunes, such  as  those  possessed  by  their  predecessors  under  Catholic  rule. 

57.  Thomas  Wolsey,  Archbishop  of  York,  was  the  son  of  a  butcher, 
who  by  his  ability  and  sagacity  rose  to  the  highest  influence  and  wealth 
under  Henry  VIH.  He  was  made  cardinal  and  legate  by  Pope  Leo  X, 
and  prime  minister  by  the  king.  He  enjoyed  the  revenues  of  several  sees, 
gathered  an  enormous  fortune,  and  lived  in  a  splendor  more  than  regal. 
His  fall  was  occasioned  by  his  want  of  zeal  in  serving  Henry  in  procuring 
the  divorce  frohi  Catherine  of  Arragon,  and  he  died  in  disgrace  in  1 530,  on 
his  way  to  London  to  be  tried  for  high  treason.  His  words  in  his  last 
hours  have  become  famous,  although  in  the  version  of  Shakespeare  rather 
than  his  own  :  "  Had  I  but  served  God  as  diligently  as  I  have  served  the 
King,  He  would  not  have  given  me  over  in  my  gray  hairs." 

"  Had  I  but  served  my  God  with  half  the  zeal 
I  served  my  king.  He  would  not  in  mine  age 
Have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies." 

Henry  VIII,  iii,  2, 

58.  William  Laud,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  under  Charles  I.  A  man 
of  purity  of  life,  but  of  great  intolerance  and  severity.  He  was  charged 
with  treason  by  the  Parliamentarian  party  after  the  death  of  Charles,  and 
although  the  charges  could  not  be  satisfactorily  established,  he  was  exe- 
cuted in  1645. 

59.  Clarendon,  Earl  of,  minister  of  Charles  I,  Lord  Chancellor  under 
Charles  IL  author  of  several  histories.     He  died  in  exile  in  France  in  1674. 


NOTES.  147 

60.  Jonathan  Swift,  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  Dublin,  1667-1745.  One  of 
the  most  brilliant  and  caustic  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century.  His  most 
famous  works  are  "  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  "  and  "  Gulliver's  Travels."  The 
passage  alluded  to  is  from  a  satirical  essay  called  "  Directions  for  Servants." 

61.  Hobbes,  English  philosophical  writer,  known  chiefly  by  a  work 
called  "  Leviathan,  or  the  Matter,  Form,  and  Power  of  a  Commonwealth, 
Ecclesiastical  and  Civil,"  published  in  1651.  Died,  1679.  Bossuet  was  a 
learned  French  bishop  and  author.     Died,  1704. 

62.  George  Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
and  corrupt  nobles  of  the  dissolute  court  of  Charles  II.  Dryden  has  given 
a  description  of  him,  under  the  name  Zimri,  in  the  famous  political  satire, 
"  Absalom  and  Achitophel  "  : 

'  A  man  so  various  that  he  seem'd  to  be 
Not  one  but  all  mankind's  epitome ; 
Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong. 
Was  everything  by  starts,  and  nothing  long; 
But,  in  the  course  of  one  revolving  moon, 
Was  chemist,  fiddler,  statesman,  and  buffoon. 
Then  all  for  women,  painting,  rhyming,  drinking, 
Besides  ten  thousand  freaks  that  died  in  thinking. 
Blest  madman !    who  could  every  hour  employ 
With  something  new  to  wish  or  to  enjoy. 
Railing  and  praising  were  his  usual  themes. 
And  both,  to  show  his  judgments,  in  extremes. 
So  over-violent  or  over-civil, 
That  every  man  with  him  was  God  or  devil. 
In  squandering  wealth  was  his  peculiar  art, 
Notliing  went  unrewarded  but  desert ; 
Beggar'd  by  fools  whom  still  he  found  too  late ; 
He  had  his  jest,  and  they  had  his  estate. 
He  laugh'd  himself  from  court,  then  had  relief 
By  forming  parties,  but  could  ne'er  be  chief." 

He  died  in  1688.  "The  truest  type  of  the  time,"  writes  Green,  "is  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  and  the  most  characteristic  event  in  the  Duke's  life 
was  a  duel  in  which  he  consummated  his  seduction  of  Lady  Shrewsbury  by 
killing  her  husband,  while  the  Countess  in  disguise  as  a  page  held  his 
horse  for  him,  and  looked  on  at  the  murder." 

63.  George  Saville,  Marquis  of  Halifax,  Lord  Privy  Seal  under  James 
II,  and  afterward  under  William  and  Mary.  Died,  1695.  ^^  published 
a  tract  called  the  "  Character  of  a  Trimmer,"  in  which  he  defended  his 
position  as  an  independent,  belonging  to  neither  party,  but  as  "  trimming  " 
from  one  side  to  the  other  as  the  public  interest  required. 


148  NOTES. 

64.  "  Lawn  sleeves  "  is  a  phrase  not  infrequently  used  to  designate  a 
bishop,  these  being  a  conspicuous  portion  of  the  dress.  The  scarlet  hood, 
worn  hanging  down  the  back,  is  the  badge  of  certain  high  university  degrees. 

65.  The  Conventicle  Act  of  1664  imposed  a  fine  on  any  person  over 
sixteen  years  of  age  for  being  present  at  any  assembly —  or  "conventicle" 
—  for  holding  worship  otherwise  than  according  to  the  Church  of  England. 
The  Five  MUe  Act  of  the  following  year  forbade  nonconformist  clergymen 
to  come  within  five  miles  of  any  corporate  town  or  place  where  they  had  once 
ministered.  Both  acts  belonged  to  what  was  known  as  the  "  Clarendon 
Code,"  a  series  of  measures  for  the  suppression  of  "  dissenters,"  or  "  non- 
conformists," those  who  refused  to  conform  to  the  forms  of  worship  of  the 
Church  of  England. 

66.  The  Exclusionists  were  supporters  of  the  bill  first  passed  by  the 
Commons  in  1679,  disabling  the  Duke  of  York,  afterwards  James  II,  as  a 
Papist,  from  succeeding  Charles  II.  The  bill  was  passed  by  the  Commons 
in  three  successive  parliaments,  but  in  each  case  the  parliament  was  dis- 
solved by  Charles,  so  that  the  bill  never  became  a  law. 

67.  The  crime  of  crimping  or  kidnapping  youths  for  slavery  in  America 
or  in  the  East  Indies  continued  in  England  well  on  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Stevenson's  novel,  "  Kidnapped,"  takes  its  name  from  an  attempt 
thus  to  get  rid  of  the  hero. 

68.  Eli  Whitney,  a  Massachusetts  man,  inventor  of  the  cotton  gin. 
Died,  1825.  Sir  Richard  Arkwright,  inventor  of  the  spinning  frame,  or 
"spinning  jenny."     Died,  1792. 

69.  Whittle  is  an  old  term  for  knife.  The  word  is  used  once  by  Shake- 
speare, and  still  exists  in  some  of  the  rural  dialects  of  England. 

70.  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  born  about  1340,  and  died  1400,  is  called  the 
"  father  of  English  poetry."  He  is  the  first  English  author  of  permanent 
importance.  His  most  famous  work,  "  The  Canterbury  Tales,"  still  remains 
one  of  the  great  classics  of  the  language. 

71.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  1709-1784,  was  one  of  the  most  famous  of 
English  men  of  letters  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  is  best 
remembered  as  the  author  of  the  first  general  dictionary  of  the  English 
tongue  and  as  the  subject  of  Boswell's  "  Life  of  Johnson,"  the  most  re- 
markable biography  in  the  language. 

72.  James  II,  the  second  son  of  Charles  I,  was  in  his  infancy  created 
Duke  of  York.  All  the  income  from  the  postal  service  was  settled  upon 
him  in  the  reign  of  his  brother,  Charles  II.     See  later  in  the  chapter. 

73.  Tunbridge  Wells,  thirty-one  miles  southeast  of  London,  where 
chalybeate  springs  were  discovered  in  1606,  was  one  of  the  most  fashion- 
able watering-places  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


NOTES.  149 

74.  Basset  was  a  game  of  cards  resembling  faro,  enormously  popular 
among  the  fashionable  gamblers  of  London  after  the  Restoration. 

75.  The  name  morris  was  probably  originally  Moresco,  or  some  word 
indicating  that  the  dance  was  derived  from  the  Moors.  It  was  performed 
by  players  whose  costume  was  hung  with  small  bells,  and  was  a  conspicu- 
ous part  of  English  Christmas  sports  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century. 

76.  Bramante  d'Urbino,  1444-1514,  a  celebrated  Italian  architect,  who 
began  the  present  church  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome.  Palladio  was  also  an 
Italian  architect,  but  of  reputation  inferior  to  that  of  Bramante ;  1 518-1 580. 

77.  Christopher  Anstey  was  a  satirical  poet,  of  more  reputation  in  his 
own  day  than  since.  He  lived  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
dying  in  1805,  and  made  a  great  success  by  "  The  New  Bath  Guide."  For 
Smollett,  see  note  41.  Frances  Burney,  best  knownby  her  novel"  Evelina," 
died  at  Bath,  1840,  at  the  age  of  eighty-eight.  By  marriage  she  was 
Madame  d'Arblay.  Jane  Austen,  1775-1817,  still  holds  rank  as  one  of  the 
finest  women  novelists  of  the  language.  Her  best-known  books  are  "  Sense 
and  Sensibility,"  "  Pride  and  Prejudice,"  "  Emma,"  and  "  Persuasion." 
All  these  writers  describe  life  and  society  at  Bath  as  it  was  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, when  that  city  was  a  fashionable  resort  and  watering-place. 

78.  John  Hampden,  1 594-1643,  and  John  Pym,  1 584-1643,  headed  the 
attacks  of  the  Commons  upon  the  government  of  Charles  I. 

79.  Richard  Cromwell,  the  son  of  Oliver,  1626-17 12,  succeeded  his 
father  as  Lord  Protector  in  1658.  He  was,  however,  forced  to  resign  in  the 
following  year. 

80.  The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  1621-1683,  was  at  first  on  the  side  of 
Charles  I,  in  his  struggle  with  the  Commons  ;  then  joined  with  the  latter; 
quarreled  with  Cromwell,  and  was  excluded  from  parliament.  He  was  one 
of  the  deputation  sent  to  invite  Charles  II  to  return  to  England,  and  under 
this  monarch  he  became  Lord  Chancellor.  He  was  involved  in  numerous 
intrigues,  and  was  at  last  forced  to  flee  to  Holland,  where  he  died.  He 
figures  in  "  Absalom  and  Achitophel  "  as  the  latter  personage,  being  des- 
cribed as 

"  For  close  designs  and  crooked  counsels  fit, 
Sagacious,  bold,  and  turbulent  of  wit ; 
Restless,  unfixed  in  principles  and  place. 
In  power  displeased,  impatient  of  disgrace. 
A  fiery  soul,  which,  working  out  its  way, 
Fretted  the  pigmy  body  to  decay. 
And  o'er-informed  the  tenement  of  clay. 
A  daring  pilot  in  extremity; 

Pleased  with  the  danger  when  the  waves  went  high, 
He  fought  the  storms ;  but,  for  a  calm  unfit, 


ISO  NOTES. 

Would  steer  too  near  the  sands  to  show  his  wit.  .  ,  . 

Yet  fame  deserved  no  enemy  can  grudge ; 

The  statesman  we  abhor,  but  praise  the  judge. 

In  Israel's  courts  ne'er  sat  an  Abethdin 

With  more  discerning  eyes,  or  hands  more  clean ; 

Unbrib'd,  unsought,  the  wretched  to  redress; 

Swift  of  dispatch,  and  easy  of  access." 

8i.    Inigo  Jones,  1 572-1652,  was  the  most  famous  architect  of  his  time. 

82.  Somers,  John,  Lord,  1652-17 16,  one  of  the  most  able  statesmen  of 
the  epoch  of  the  Revolution. 

83.  John  Tillotson,  1630-1694,  famous  English  divine  and  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury. 

84.  John  Dryden,  1 631-1700,  poet,  playwright,  satirist,  and  essayist. 
His  most  famous  works  are  "  Absalom  and  Achitophel,"  "  Ode  on  St. 
Cecilia's  Day"  (first  and  second),  and  "The  Hind  and  the  Panther."  For 
the  honor  in  which  he  was  held  in  his  old  age,  see  later  in  the  account  of 
the  coffee-houses. 

85.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  1642-1727,  conceived  the  theory  of  gravitation 
about  1666,  and  presented  to  the  Royal  Society  in  1686  his  famous  "  Prin- 
cipia,"  which  set  forth  the  theory  as  applied  to  the  system  of  the  universe. 
The  "  Principia  "  was  published  in  the  following  year. 

86.  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  Earl  of  Orford,  1 676-1 745,  Prime  Minister 
under  George  I.  He  maintained  his  power  by  the  most  wholesale  bribery 
and  corruption,  but  he  preserved  peace  at  a  time  when  it  was  essential  to 
the  prosperity  of  England.  William  Pitt,  Earl  of  Chatham,  1 708-1 778, 
called  "the  great  commoner,"  was  Prime  Minister  under  both  George  II 
and  George  III.  He  warmly  advocated  conciliatory  measures  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  American  colonies,  although  opposed  to  their  complete  freedom. 

87.  The  battle  of  Worcester  was  fought  September  3,  1651,  during  the 
unsuccessful  attempt  of  Charles  II  to  obtain  the  throne  left  vacant  by  the 
execution  of  his  father.  The  Scotch  Royalist  forces  were  beaten  by  Crom- 
well, and  Charles  put  to  flight,  this  engagement  closing  the  campaign. 

88.  Andrew  Marvel  was  a  Parliamentary  poet  and  satirist,  famous  for 
his  attacks  on  the  government  of  Charles  II.  Three  of  his  poems  are  given 
in  the  "  Golden  Treasury,"  numbered  Ixv,  cxl,  and  cxiv.  The  first,  the 
"  Horatian  Ode"  to  Cromwell,  is  one  of  his  best-known  lyrics. 

89.  John  Sobieski  was  king  of  Poland,  167 4-1696.  Doge  was  the  title 
of  the  chief  magistrate  of  Venice  and  of  Genoa,  the  office  being  elective,  at 
first  for  life,  but  afterward  for  a  fixed  term.  The  office  continued  in  Venice 
from  the  eighth,  and  in  Genoa  from  the  fourteenth,  to  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century.     Lawrence  Hyde,  Earl  of  Rochester,  son  of  the  great 


NOTES.  151 

Earl  of  Clarendon,  became  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  in  1679.  He  was 
opposed  to  Lord  Halifax  in  the  struggle  to  exclude  the  Duke  of  York, 
afterward  James  II,  from  the  succession  on  account  of  his  religion.  He 
died  in  171 1.  His  dissolute  character  is  sufficiently  indicated  elsewhere  in 
the  chapter. 

90.  The  Duke  of  Monmouth  was  a  natural  son  of  Charles  II,  born 
while  that  prince  was  in  exile,  1649.  -^^  Charles  had  no  legitimate  heir,  a 
design  was  formed  to  secure  the  succession  for  Monmouth.  Charles  re- 
fused to  countenance  the  idea,  and  twice  banished  his  son  to  Holland. 
After  the  death  of  Charles,  Monmouth  raised  troops,  and  had  himself  pro- 
claimed king  ;  but  his  forces  were  routed  by  those  of  James  II  in  the  battle 
of  Sedgemoor,  and  he  was  soon  after  captured  and  executed. 

91.  The  foolish  trick  of  affected  pronunciation  has  been  the  badge  of 
the  fop  for  centuries.  The  Roman  satirists  made  merry  over  it;  Ben  Jonson 
jeered  at  the  dandies  who  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  affected  an  Italian 
accent.  In  our  own  day  there  is  plenty  of  jesting  over  the  affectations  of 
those  who  imitate  English  speech.  At  the  time  of  which  Macaulay  writes 
the  fashionable  dialect  was  chiefly  notable  by  the  pronunciation  of  o  like  a. 
Lord  Foppingham  is  a  character  in  the  comedy  of  Sir  John  Vanbrugh, 
1666-1726,  called  "  The  Relapse."  Foppingham  is  a  wealthy  fool  who  has 
just  purchased  a  title,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  is  represented  as  talking 
is  probably  a  fair,  if  somewhat  extreme,  example  of  the  manner  of  the  time  ; 

"  Amanda.     The  inside  of  a  book  should  recommend  it  most  to  us. 

"  Lord  Fop.  That,  I  must  confess,  I  am  not  altogether  so  fand  of.  Far  to  my 
mind  the  inside  of  a  book  is  to  entertain  one's  self  with  the  forced  product  of  another 
man's  brain.  Naw  I  think  a  man  of  quality  and  breeding  may  be  much  diverted  with 
the  natural  sprauts  of  his  own,"  etc. 

92.  Charles  Perrault,  1 628-1 703,  a  French  writer  who  espoused  warmly 
the  cause  of  modern  literature  as  opposed  to  classical.  The  quarrel  between 
Perrault  and  Boileau  concerning  the  relative  merits  of  the  ancients  and 
moderns  lasted  a  dozen  years.  He  is  remembered  to-day  by  his  collection 
of  fairy  tales,  "  Les  contes  de  ma  mere  Voye"  "Tales  of  my  Mother  Goose." 

93.  Nicholas  Boileau-Despreaux,  1636-1711,  a  famous  French  critic  and 
poet.  He  was  the  father  of  French  criticism,  and  his  "  Art poetique''  is  the 
book  upon  which  were  based  the  theories  of  the  school  of  poetry  in  England 
of  which  Pope  was  the  head. 

94.  "Venice  Preserved,"  a  tragedy  by  Thomas  Otway,  1651-1685,  was 
very  popular  in  its  time.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  upon  Milton's 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  mentioned  in  the  previous  line,  except  to  note  that  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  question  whether  epic  and  dra- 


152  NOTES. 

matic  poetry  should  be  in  blank  verse  or  rhyme  was  very  earnestly  debated. 
Dryden  at  first  wrote  tragedies  in  rhyme,  and  vigorously  defended  the 
practice ;  but  he  afterward  changed  his  views. 

95.  Jean  Baptiste  Racine,  1 639-1699,  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
of  French  dramatic  poets.  Some  of  his  plays  yet  keep  the  French  stage, 
and  one,  at  least,  the  "  Phedre,"  has  been  in  late  years  played  in  this 
country  by  Sara  Bernhardt  and  Madame  Duse.  Rene  Le  Bossu,  a  French 
abbe,  published  in  1675  a  "  Traite  du  poeme  epique,"  a  work  of  more  note 
then  than  it  has  been  since. 

96.  The  adventure  at  Gadshill  is  told  by  Shakespeare  in  the  second  act 
of  the  First  Part  of  King  Henry  IV.  Gadshill  in  more  recent  times  became 
the  home  of  Charles  Dickens. 

97.  Boniface  is  a  rascally  landlord  in  Farquhar's  comedy,  "  Beaux' 
Stratagem."  He  furnished  information  of  the  movements  of  travelers  to 
Gibbet,  the  highwayman.  The  name  has  come  to  be  used  as  a  general 
term  for  an  innkeeper. 

97a.  The  allusion  is  of  course  to  Chaucer,  who  in  the  prologue  to  the 
*  Canterbury  Tales  "  makes  the  personages  who  were  going  on  the  pilgrim- 
age gather  at  the  Tabard  Inn. 

"  Bifil  that  in  that  seson  on  a  day 
In  Southwerk  at  the  Tabbard  as  I  lay, 
Redy  to  wenden  on  my  pilgrimage 
To  Caunterbury  with  full  devout  corage, 
At  nyght  were  come  into  that  hostelyre 
Wei  nyne  and  twenty  in  a  compaignye 
Of  sondry  folk." 

98.  William  Shenstone,  English  poet,  17 14-1763.  His  best-known 
work  is  the  "  Schoolmistress,"  one  of  the  earliest  examples  of  modern  real- 
ism. The  reference  in  the  text  is  to  an  often-quoted  verse,  said  to  have 
been  written  by  Shenstone  on  the  window  of  an  inn : 

"  Whoe'er  has  travelled  life's  dull  round, 
Where'er  his  stages  may  have  been, 
May  sigh  to  think  he  still  has  found 
The  warmest  welcome  of  an  inn." 

99.  Sir  Edmundbury  Godfrey  was  the  London  magistrate  before  whom 
Titus  Oates  made  a  deposition  concerning  the  so-called  Popish  Plot  in 
1 68 1.  Godfrey  was  soon  afterward  found  in  a  ditch  dead  from  a  sword- 
thrust.  It  was  at  once  assumed  that  he  had  1:)een  murdered  by  the 
Catholics,  and  immense  excitement  resulted.  Edward  Coleman  was  secre- 
tary to  the  Duchess  of  York.     He  was  accused  by  Oates,  and  among  his 


NOTES.  153 

papers,  seized  when  he  was  arrested,  were  found  letters  to  the  confessor  of 
Louis  XIV  asking  for  money  to  be  employed  in  giving  "  the  greatest  blow 
to  the  Protestant  religion  it  has  received  since  its  birth." 

IOC.  Titus  Gates  was  a  worthless  and  unscrupulous  adventurer,  a  clergy- 
man convicted  of  perjury,  who  devised  the  story  of  the  so-called  Popish 
Plot.  He  alleged  that  a  general  massacre  of  Protestants  by  the  Catholics 
was  intended.  The  assassination  of  Godfrey  and  the  papers  of  Coleman 
gave  so  strong  a  color  of  probability  to  the  tale  that  it  was  generally 
received  as  true  by  the  Protestants.  The  agitation  was  fostered  by  Shaftes- 
bury for  political  purposes,  and  when  he  had  gained  his  ends  it  died  out 
for  want  of  fuel.  Gates  was  pilloried  and  sentenced  to  imprisonment.  He 
was,  however,  released  after  the  Revolution. 

loi.  The  Janizaries  were  the  body-guard  of  the  sultan  of  Turkey.  The 
troop  was  organized  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  became  so  large  and 
powerful  as  practically  to  restrict  greatly  the  power  of  the  sultan.  In  1826 
the  Janizaries  were  destroyed  by  a  revolt  contrived  by  Mahmud  II,  and  by 
the  massacre  by  which  it  was  followed. 

loa.  Blaise  Pascal,  1623-1662,  was  a  celebrated  French  mathematician, 
philosopher,  and  author.  Jean  Baptiste  Poquelin  Moliere,  1 622-1 673,  was 
the  greatest  French  writer  of  comedies  and  one  of  the  most  brilliant 
geniuses  of  all  literature,  except  for  the  four  or  five  of  the  world's  greatest. 

103.  Dante  Alighieri,  1 265-1 321,  the  greatest  of  Italian  poets,  author 
of  the  "Vita  Nuova"  and  the  "  Divine  Comedy."  It  is  usual  to  regard 
Shakespeare,  Homer,  and  Dante  as  the  greatest  writers  of  all  time.  Tor- 
quato  Tasso,  1 544-1 595.  a  celebrated  Italian  poet.  His  most  famous 
poem  is  "  Jerusalem  Delivered." 

104.  Johann  Wolfgang  von  Goethe,  1749-1832,  was  the  chief  poet  and 
one  of  the  great  novelists  of  Germany.  His  most  famous  poem  is  "  Faust " ; 
his  most  celebrated  novel  "  Wilhelm  Meister."  Friedrich  von  Schiller, 
1759-1805,  a  famous  German  poet,  the  friend  of  Goethe.  He  produced 
numerous  plays  and  works  in  prose  and  in  verse.  His  poetic  plays, 
"  Wallenstein,"  "  Maria  Stuart,"  and  "  William  TeU  "  are  best  known. 

105.  Lady  Jane  Grey,  1 537-1 554,  the  beautiful  and  ill-fated  instrument 
of  the  ambition  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland,  who  for  eleven  days  after 
the  death  of  Edward  VI  bore  the  title  of  queen.  The  throne  being  then 
taken  by  Mary,  Lady  Jane  was  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  and  afterward 
beheaded.  Lucy  Hutchinson,  1 620-1 659,  was  the  daughter  of  Sir  John 
Apsley  and  wife  of  Colonel  John  Hutchinson.  After  the  death  of  her 
husband  she  wrote  his  memoirs,  and  this  book  is  so  valuable  from  the 
light  that  it  throws  on  the  period  covered  by  it  as  to  be  still  an  authority. 
As  both  Lady  Jane  Grey  and  Mrs.  Hutchinson  were  notable  for  the  high 


15i  NOTES. 

cultivation   of   their  minds,  Macaulay    uses  them  as  a   type  contrasting 
sharply  with  the  unintellectual  women  of  whom  he  is  writing. 

io6.  After  the  Restoration  there  came  into  fashion  a  certain  sort  of 
enormously  long  and  enormously  sentimental  romance  then  in  vogue  in 
France.  Two  of  the  most  popular  of  these  stories  were  the  "  Clelia  "  and 
"  The  Grand  Cyrus." 

107.  Philaris  was  a  tyrant  of  Agrigentum  in  Sicily,  in  the  sixth  century 
B.C.  He  is  said  to  have  roasted  his  enemies  in  a  brazen  bull  so  contrived 
that  the  cries  of  the  victims  were  made  to  sound  like  the  natural  bellowing 
of  that  animal.  Certain  epistles  which  it  was  claimed  were  written  by  him 
were  discovered  or  forged  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  much  discussion  as 
to  their  genuineness  ensued.  Richard  Bentley,  1 662-1 742,  is  held  to  have 
proved  them  to  be  fictitious. 

108.  Lucius  Cary,  Viscount  Falkland,  killed  in  the  battle  of  Newbury, 
1643,  fighting  on  the  side  of  the  Royalists.  He  was  a  politician  and  man 
of  letters,  one  of  the  comparatively  limited  number  of  classical  scholars  in 
England  in  his  time. 

log.  Charles  James  Fox,  son  of  Lord  Holland,  1749-1806,  an  English 
statesman  and  orator.  He  supported  the  cause  of  the  American  colonies 
during  the  Revolution,  and  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  impeachment  of 
Warren  Hastings.  William  Windham,  17 50-18 10,  English  statesman  and 
orator.  George  Grenville,  1712-1770,  statesman.  Prime  Minister  under 
George  III.  For  Pitt,  see  note  86.  The  passage  emphasizes  the  intellec- 
tual inefficiency  of  the  seventeenth  century  by  contrasting  its  scholarship' 
with  that  of  the  statesmen  in  the  preceding  and  following  centuries. 

no.  Augustus,  Caius  Julius  Caesar  Octavianus,  or  more  briefly  Augustus 
Caesar,  was  the  first  Roman  Emperor.  He  was  born  63  B.C.,  and  became 
undisputed  master  of  the  empire  in  31  B.C.,  although  not  receiving  the  title 
"  Augustus"  until  27  B.C.  He  died  14  a.d.  In  his  reign  Roman  literature 
reached  its  highest  development.  So  great  was  the  time  of  his  reign  that 
the  term  "  Augustan  Age  "  became  typical  of  peace  and  prosperity.  He 
gave  his  name  to  the  month  August,  and  Jesus  Christ  was  born  during  his 
reign.  Virgil,  Horace,  and  Ovid,  the  Latin  poets,  were  all  patronized  by 
Augustus,  and  all  wrote  in  his  praise. 

III.  This  account  of  the  way  in  which  the  French  language  became 
chief  among  continental  tongues,  and  in  England  replaced  both  Latin  and 
Greek  and  the  Italian  which  was  the  fashionable  language  at  the  time  ofj 
Elizabeth  is  the  more  interesting  from  the  fact  that  up  to  the  present  time. 
French  has  continued  the  means  of  communication  between  persons  of 
different  tongues.  English  is,  however,  now  largely  recognized  as  coming 
into  somewhat  the  same  use. 


NOTES,  155 

112.  Jean  de  la  Fontaine,  1621-1695,  a  French  author  chiefly  celebrated 
for  his  twelve  books  of  fables  in  verse.  For  Bossuet,  see  note  61 ;  Racine, 
note  95;    and  Moliere,  note  102. 

113.  John  Donne,  1 573-1631,  English  poet  and  divine. 

114.  Abraham  Cowley,  161 8-1 667,  English  poet.  He  is  represented  in 
the  "  Golden  Treasury  "  by  the  poem  numbered  cii. 

115.  The  Puritan  custom  of  giving  to  their  children  whole  scnptural 
phrases  as  names  is  well  known.  A  striking  example  is  Praisegod  Bare- 
bones,  a  member  of  Cromwell's  Parliament.  He  is  said  to  have  had  two 
brothers,  one  named  Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save,  and  the  other 
If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst-been-damned.  That  human  nature  is  much 
the  same  in  all  ages  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  irreverent  are  said  to 
have  abbreviated  the  latter  name  into  its  last  syllable.  The  horror  of  the 
Puritans  at  all  festive  celebrations  was  intensified  when  they  saw  in  a  feast 
anything  relating  to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith;  and  thus  they  especially 
condemned  plum-puddings  and  mince  pies  as  connected  with  the  Church 
observance  of  Christmas.  Jack  in  the  Green  was  a  character  in  the  May 
Day  sports,  represented  by  a  lad  decorated  with  flowers  and  standing  amid 
rings  or  hoops  of  evergreen. 

116.  Richard  Crashaw,  1 61 6-1 650,  English  poet.  A  charming  specimen 
of  his  verse  is  given  in  the  "  Golden  Treasury,"  Ixxix. 

117.  There  were  a  number  of  remarkable  sects  developed  among  the 
Puritans.  The  Supralapsarians  held  the  doctrine  that  before  the  fall  of 
man  God  had  already  destined  some  to  eternal  life  and  others  to  eternal 
death. 

118.  Edmund  Waller,  1 605-1 687,  English  poet.  His  best-known  and 
most  delicate  poem  is  "  Go,  Lovely  Rose,"  "  Golden  Treasury,"  Ixxxix. 

ii8a.  The  allusion  is  of  course  to  John  Milton,  1 608-1 674,  and  to  his 
great  epic,  "  Paradise  Lost,"  published  in  1667. 

iig.  Samuel  Butler,  161 2-1680,  is  remembered  by  the  very  clever  and 
very  bitter  satire  on  Puritanism,  "  Hudibras."  The  poem  was  a  great 
favorite  with  Charles  II. 

120.  Ben  Jonson,  i573(?)-i637,  a  celebrated  dramatist  and  poet  of  the 
Elizabethan  period.  His  most  important  plays  are  "  Volpone,"  "  Epicoene, 
or  the  Silent  Woman,"  "  Every  Man  in  His  Humor,"  and  the  "  Alchemist." 
Over  his  grave  in  Westminster  Abbey  are  the  words,  "  O  rare  Ben  Jonson." 
He  was  assisted  in  his  early  dramatic  career  by  Shakespeare,  and  he  was  at 
one  time  the  traveling  tutor  to  the  son  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 

121.  Before  the  Restoration  the  parts  of  women  had  been  played  by 
young  men.  This  explains  the  frequency  with  which  the  old  dramatic 
authors  disguised  their  heroines  in  made  attire. 


156  NOTES. 

122.  Pedro  Calderon  de  la  Barca,  1600-1681,  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
of  Spanish  playwrights  and  poets.     He  wrote  more  than  a  hundred  plays. 

123.  Viola  is  the  charming  heroine  of  "  Twelfth  Night";  Alceste,  the 
hero  of  "  Le  Misanthrope,"  is  a  high-minded  though  unreasonable  gentle- 
man ;  Agnes,  in  "  L'ficole  des  Femmes,"  is  the  type  of  the  utterly  unso- 
phisticated young  girl. 

124.  Thomas  Southern,  1660-1746,  British  dramatist.  His  most  popu- 
lar play  was  "  Isabella,  or  the  Fatal  Marriage,"  which  Mrs.  Siddons  revived, 
and  in  which  she  made  her  first  success  forty  years  after  his  death. 

125.  Thomas  Otway,  1651-1685,  the  principal  tragic  poet  among  the 
English  dramatists  of  the  seventeenth  century.  His  most  famous  play  was 
"  Venice  Preserved."     See  note  94. 

126.  Thomas  Shadwell,  1640-1692,  playwright  and  poet  laureate,  is 
better  remembered  by  the  sharpness  with  which  he  was  satirized  by  Dryden 
in  "'  MacFlecknoe  "  and  in  the  second  part  of  "  Absalom  and  Achitophel " 
than  for  anything  he  himself  wrote.     Dryden  said  of  him  : 

"  The  rest  to  some  faint  meaning  make  pretence, 
But  Shadwell  never  deviates  into  sense." 

His  plays,  however,  although  they  were  exceedingly  coarse,  were  not  with- 
out wit. 

127.  Juvenal,  about  60-140,  a  noted  Roman  satirist. 

128.  Lucretius,  died  55  B.C.,  a  Roman  philosophical  poet.  His  great 
poem,  "  De  Rerum  Natura "  ("  On  the  Nature  of  Things "),  treated  of 
physics,  psychology,  and  ethics.     Mrs.  Browning  says  of  him  : 

"  Lucretius  —  nobler  than  his  mood : 
Who  dropped  his  plummet  down  the  broad 
Deep  universe,  and  said, '  No  God,' 
Finding  no  bottom :  he  denied 
Divinely  the  divine,  and  died 
Chief  poet  on  the  Tiber  side 
By  grace  of  God ! " 

A  Vision  of  Poets. 

129.  Verulamian  doctrine,  the  theories  of  Francis  Bacon,  Baron  Veru- 
iam.  Bacon  endeavored  to  reform  the  methods  of  scientific  investigation. 
His  service  to  science  was  of  value,  but  overestimated  at  the  time  of  which 
Macaulay  writes.  It  is  of  course  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  verse  quoted 
from  Dryden  was  written  to  be  taken  literally. 

130.  Prince  Rupert,  1619-1682,  nephew  of  Charles  I,  commander  of  the 
cavalry  and  afterward  of  the  navy  in  the  war  between  Charles  and  Parlia- 
ment.    After  the   Restoration  he   came  again   into   power  in  the   British 


NOTES.  157 

navy.     His  later  years  were  given  to  scientific  investigation,  and  he  is  said 
to  have  invented  "  Prince  Rupert  drops." 

131.  John  Evelyn,  1 620-1 706,  English  author.  His  diary,  first  pub- 
lished in  the  present  century,  gives  most  interesting  information  concerning 
his  time.  He  devoted  many  years  to  the  study  of  gardening,  and  wrote 
much  upon  the  subject.     See  note  45. 

132.  Hippocrates,  a  Greek  physician,  died  about  377  B.C.  Galen  was 
also  a  Greek  physician,  dying  about  200  A.D.  Both  left  numerous  writings, 
and  for  centuries  it  was  held  that  whatever  did  not  agree  with  the  doctrines 
of  Hippocrates  and  Galen  must  necessarily  be  incorrect. 

133.  Robert  Boyle,  1627- 1691,  Irish  chemist  and  natural  philosopher, 
best  known  as  the  discoverer  of  Boyle's  law  of  the  elasticity  of  air.  Sir 
Hans  Sloane,  1660-17  5 2,  Irish  naturalist.  He  succeeded  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton as  president  of  the  Royal  Society.  His  most  important  book  was  one 
upon  the  natural  history  of  the  island  of  Jamaica.  His  library  of  50,000 
volumes  and  over  3000  manuscripts  formed  the  nucleus  of  the  British 
Museum. 

134.  The  intellectual  energies  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  largely  expended 
in  controversies  upon  obscure  points  of  logic  and  of  theology.  Two  prin- 
cipal parties  were  distinguished  among  the  learned  men  of  Europe, — 
those  who  followed  the  teachings  of  Duns  Scotus,  and  those  who  adhered 
to  the  school  of  Thomas  Aquinas.  The  first  was  a  Scotch  Franciscan 
friar.  Scotus  was  probably  the  most  clever  thinker  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  yet  from  a  corruption  of  his  Christian  name,  first  used  in  praise  and 
afterwards  satirically,  comes  our  word  "dunce."  He  died  1308.  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  sometimes  called  the  father  of  moral  philosophy,  was 
an  Italian,  a  monk  of  the  Dominican  order.     He  died  1274. 

135.  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  1 632-1 723,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of 
English  architects.  After  the  Great  Fire  of  London  he  was  at  the  head  of 
the  reconstruction  of  the  burned  district,  and  designed  many  of  the  chief 
churches.  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  is  his  work,  and  bears  on  its  north  door  the 
inscription  in  his  memory :  "  Si  monumentum  requiris,  circumspice  "  (If  you 
seek  his  monument,  look  around  you). 

136.  Louis  XIV  of  France,  called  "  Le  Grand."     See  note  20. 

137.  Sir  Peter  Lely,  1618-1680,  court  painter  to  Charles  II.  A  large 
number  of  his  portraits  of  court  beauties  are  to  be  seen  at  Hampton  Court. 

138.  Count  Anthony  Hamilton,  1646-1720,  was  a  French  author  of 
Irish  descent.  He  was  brother-in-law  to  the  Comte  de  Gramont,  a  French 
nobleman  of  the  court  of  Louis  XIV,  and  afterward  of  Charles  II. 
Hamilton  wrote  the  "  Memoires  "  of  Gramont,  which  are  very  scandalous, 
but  full  of  information  about  the  fashionables  of  the  court  of  Charles. 


158  NOTES. 

139.  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  1646-1723,  the  contemporary  and  rival  of 
Lely.  His  best  portraits  were  of  men,  especially  a  series  of  portraits  of 
English  admirals. 

140.  William  Howard  Stafford,  161 2-1 680,  was  accused  by  Gates  of 
complicity  in  the  Popish  Plot  (see  note  100)  and  executed.  Stafford  was 
a  man  of  high  personal  character,  and  his  protestations  of  innocence  were 
generally  believed.  His  death  marked  the  beginning  of  the  reaction 
against  Shaftesbury. 

141.  Lord  William  Russell,  1 639-1 683,  was.  executed  upon  the  charge 
of  being  implicated  in  the  Rye  House  Plot,  a  conspiracy  formed  aftei  the 
failure  of  the  Exclusion  Act  to  murder  the  king  and  the  Duke  of  York. 

142.  The  state  of  the  English  prisons  continued  to  be  a  horrible  scandal 
until  the  end  of  the  last  century,  when  they  were  reformed,  chiefly  through 
the  noble  efforts  of  John  Howard,  the  great  philanthropist.  When  Howard 
examined  the  prisons  in  1774,  he  found  "  no  separation  preserved  between 
the  sexes,  no  criminal  discipline  enforced.  Every  jail  was  a  chaos  of 
cruelty  and  the  foulest  immorality,  from  which  the  prisoner  could  escape 
only  by  sheer  starvation  or  the  jail-fever  that  festered  without  ceasing  in 
these  haunts  of  wretchedness." 


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